Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

Stoke-on-Trent Extension Bill [Lords].
Imperial Continental Gas Association Bill [Lords].
Rhodes Trust Bill [Lords].
Beaumont Thomas Estate Bill [Lords].

Bills to be read a Second time.

Provisional Order Bills (Standing Orders applicable thereto complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill.
Ministry of Health Provisional Order (No. 5) Bill.
Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill.
Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Yeovil Extension) Bill.
Darlington Corporation Trolley Vehicles (Additional Routes) Provisional Order Bill.

Bills to be read a Second time Tomorrow.

Great Western Railway (Air Transport) Bill,

As amended, considered.

Ordered, "That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

London and North Eastern Railway (Air Transport) Bill,

As amended, considered.

Ordered, "That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

London, Midland, and Scottish Railway (Air Transport) Bill,

As amended, considered.

Ordered, "That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Pacific Cable Board Bill [Lords],

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Southern Railway (Air Transport) Bill,

As amended, considered.

Ordered, "That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Chairman of Ways, and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

County of Cornwall Bill [Lords] (by Order),

Galloway Water Power Bill [Lords] (by Order),

London County Council (General Powers) Bill [Lords] (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Thursday, at Half-past Seven of the Clock.

Mexborough and Swinton Traction Bill [Lords] (by Order),

Read a Second time, and committed.

Falkirk Burgh Order Confirmation Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

PUBLIC SOCIAL SERVICES.

Return ordered, "showing, so far as particulars are available, the total expenditure (other than out of loans for capital purposes) in England and Wales under certain Acts of Parliament during the years ended the 31st Day of March, 1891, 1901, 1911, 1921, 1928, and 1929, respectively, and the total number of persons directly benefiting from the expenditure for the year 1928, together with similar particulars for Scotland (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 16, of Session 1928)."—[Sir Evelyn Cecil.]

TRAMWAYS AND LIGHT RAILWAYS (STREET AND ROAD) AND TRACKLESS TROLLEY UNDERTAKINGS.

Return ordered, "of Street and Road Tramways and Light Railways authorised by Act or Order, showing the amount of capital authorised, paid up, and expended; the length of line authorised and the length open for traffic, and number of cars owned at the 31st day of December, 1928, in respect of companies, and the end of the financial year 1928–29 in respect of local authorities; the gross receipts, working expenditure, net receipts and appropriations, the transactions in reserve funds, and traffic and operating statistics for the year ended on the foregoing dates, respectively (in continuation of Return to an Order of the House dated the 23rd day of May, 1928); also similar particulars relating to Trackless Trolley Undertakings."—[Colonel Ashley.]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

IMPERIAL PREFERENCE (CANADA).

Viscount SANDON: 1.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the raw materials quoted in the letter of protest from the British High Commissioner at Ottawa to the Canadian Government as involving over 50 per cent. of the cost of certain finished articles on import into Canada from Britain, and thereby not being eligible for the Empire preference, could be procured
from within the Empire and thereby enable the preference to operate, instead of coming from the United States?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): At present it would be difficult, if not impossible, for manufacturers to obtain adequate supplies of materials from Empire sources for the manufacture for the Canadian market of the goods to which my noble Friend refers. I may add that the Canadian Government are now carrying on investigations in this country as to the difficulties which manufacturers and exporters experience in complying with the new Canadian conditions.

Viscount SANDON: Does my right hon. Friend think it really impossible to get these raw materials within the British Empire?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Yes, I said so.

FINE CHEMICALS (DUTIES).

Mr. CRAWFURD: 5.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the quantity and value of fine chemicals imported during the years 1926, 1927 and 1928, and the amount of duty collected thereon; and if he will give the names of fine chemicals which have been removed from the list of dutiable articles during the years 1926, 1927 and 1928 and those which have been placed in the list in the same period?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The answer is rather long, and the hon. Member will perhaps agree to my circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. CRAWFURD: With regard to the second part of the question, could the right hon. Gentleman just give the total number of articles taken off and the total number added?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: No, I am afraid I could not do that, because there are three White Papers which give them in detail. I will certainly send the hon. Member copies of them if he is not otherwise able to obtain them.

Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether radium compounds have at any time been in this list?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Again, I have not got the exact list before me, but, speaking from memory, radium was at one time in the list and is now exempted from duty, but I would rather the hon. Gentleman put down a question, so that I could give him a precise answer. My recollection certainly is that at the present time radium and, I think, radium compounds, are exempt from duty.

Following is the answer:

Under the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921, and the Finance Act, 1926, an import duty is leviable on synthetic organic chemicals, analytical re-agents, all other fine chemicals, and chemicals manufactured by fermentation processes; and the information available relates to the whole of this group of chemicals. The imports of these chemicals subject to duty, retained for home consumption in the years 1926, 1927 and 1928, were valued at £493,740, £552,942 and £567,852 respectively, and the amount of duty paid was £164,630, £184,002 and £188,871. Particulars of quantities are not available, and imports of goods consigned from and manufactured in the British Empire, which are not subject to the duty, are not included.

The names of the chemicals which have been added to the list of dutiable articles during these years are contained in the "Additional lists of articles chargeable with duty under Part 1 of the Safeguard-of Industries Act," which are published in the Stationery Office paper 51–106 of 1928. Lists of the chemicals which have, under the powers conferred by Section 10 (5) of the Finance Act, 1926, been exempted from duty for various periods, are contained in Statutory Rules and Orders No. 761 of 1927, 927 of 1928, and 985 of 1928, which have also been issued by the Stationery Office.

Oral Answers to Questions — SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES.

LACE PRODUCTION.

Sir JOHN POWER: 2.
asked the President of the Board of Trade how the production of British lace during 1928 compared with the production during the year prior to the introduction of the Safeguarding Duty?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I am not in possession of complete figures of production
covering all firms engaged in the lace industry; and I cannot, therefore, give absolute figures of comparison. But the figures of machine output and the returns of sales which the lace trade have furnished (and which cover a large part of the industry) both indicate a material improvement in activity in the industry since the imposition of the duty.

Mr. HANNON: Can my right hon. Friend tell the House how many people would be displaced from employment if this duty were repealed?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I have no doubt it would be a very considerable number, not only those who have been added to the industry since the duty was imposed, but a number of others as well.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Has the right hon. Gentleman any official figures, and, if so, will he give them, instead of assuming things?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I have not assumed things. What I said was that I had got figures which were given me by the lace trade, covering a very large proportion of it. These have already been published in the papers, and they certainly indicate, on both the production and sale sides, a remarkable advance.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is it not a fact that there are fewer lace workers in the industry to-day than there were when the duty was put on?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: No, it is not in the least. There are some specious figures which I have seen advanced of numbers of people who figure on some list, but, when you come to the actual number of lace workers who are at work, there are very considerably more at work in the industry to-day, and there are very many more working whole-time who were only working part-time before.

Major MacANDREW: Is there any case of which my right hon. Friend knows in which the price of lace has been raised since the imposition of the duty?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: No, I know of no such case.

Mr. PALING: Are we to take it that all the figures that have any bearing
against the right hon. Gentleman's arguments are specious, and that all the others are to be depended on?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I have no reason to suppose at all that the figures I have cited are not entirely correct, and, if the hon. Gentleman would visit Nottingham and see what is happening there in the development of the lace trade, he would find what the facts are.

WOOLLEN INDUSTRY.

Sir BASIL PETO: 3.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give the date of the first sitting of the Committee appointed to consider the application of the Yorkshire woollen industry for safeguarding; how many sittings the Committee held; the number of witnesses heard; the date of the last sitting of the Committee; whether he can give any indication as to the date when the Committee's Report may be expected; and whether he can state the reason of the long delay in reporting the decision of the Committee?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The first public sitting of the Committee took place on the 4th of February, and the last on the 28th of March. I understand that the hearing occupied 24 sittings and that 37 witnesses were called. I am not able to say when the Committee will present their Report, but, in view of the importance and complexity of the case, I do not think it would be reasonable to suggest that any undue delay has taken place.

Sir B. PETO: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that uncertainty with regard to the future is very prejudicial to the course of the industry, and that there is evidence that foreign manufacturers are taking advantage of this state of uncertainty now, and can he indicate whether any announcement will be made, in view of the fact that the Finance Bill was introduced yesterday and that the period of the present Parliament is running out?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Obviously, I can make no announcement of any kind until, first of all, the Report has been received, and then the Government have had the opportunity of considering it. I
may say that I think one of the members of the Committee was taken seriously ill just at the end of the inquiry and was only able to continue and return to work a short time ago, but I am certain that a responsible Committee of this kind will not incur any unnecessary delay.

Mr. MONTAGUE: If it is true that Safeguarding does these wonderful things, why do the Government refuse to apply it to agriculture?

MERCANTILE MARINE (LICENSED PILOTS).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 4.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of licensed pilots in the United Kingdom on the last convenient date, and their average net annual earnings?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the House of Commons paper, "Abstract of Returns relating to Pilotage for 1927," which was ordered by the House to be printed in November last. It appears that there were 1,725 licensed pilots in the United Kingdom on 31st December, 1927, and that the average net earnings per pilot for the year 1927 were £513.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are those the latest figures, and, if so, is the right hon. Gentleman unable to obtain more recent figures?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: That is the last annual Return presented to Parliament, and they certainly are the last complete figures available.

RIVER EXE (DREDGING).

The following question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Lieutenant-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE:

6. "To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Exmouth Urban District Council, acting under a lease granted by him, has forbidden dredging in the mouth of the river Exe, and have thereby put some 40 men out of work; and whether, seeing
that this lease comes up for review next June, he will state what action he proposes to take."

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: In asking this question, I would point out that the words "seeing that" should be omitted, as I am not sure whether the lease does in fact come up for review.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: It does not make any difference to the reply. The lease in question, which is of the nature of a yearly tenancy determinable by three months' notice, was granted after local advertisement to the Exmouth Urban District Council last year for the purpose of enabling them to regulate the removal of materials below low water mark, the removal, it was represented, being detrimental to the safety of property in the district. The Council, acting under the lease, have decided to prevent removal within its limits altogether, and, after careful consideration, I am not prepared to take any action with regard to their decision, to which they strongly adhere, I am communicating with my hon. Friend as to the possibility of allowing dredging in an area of the Exe outside the limits of the lease.

Sir CLIVE MORRISON-BELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a good deal of anxiety is being caused by the depredations of the raiders from the other side of the river?

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the amount of gravel has very greatly increased during the last 20 years at the point at which this dredging takes place, and that the Exmouth Council have themselves been selling quantities of sand?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I am seeking an opportunity of finding a solution which will be agreeable to both my hon. Friends and the interests which they represent. No doubt there was a very strong case for preventing dredging in this particular area, because it was likely to cause, and was, I think, causing damage, but I am trying to see if there is not some area of the Exe in which this dredging can take place without damage being caused.

BRITISH ARMY (SPECIAL CAMPAIGN PENSION).

Mr. TAYLOR: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in the event of a man in receipt of the special campaign pension being awarded an old age pension, it is the practice to withdraw the special campaign pension; and, if so, will he state the regulations governing the award of special campaign pensions?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): The grant of old age pension does not necessarily result in the withdrawal or reduction of special campaign pension, but it may do so if the pensioner has other means, as one of the conditions governing the grant of a special campaign pension is that the income of the recipient must not exceed certain fixed limits. Old age pension must be taken into account in this connection. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the regulations governing the award of special campaign pensions.

Mr. TAYLOR: Is it the general practice to take away the special campaign pension if the means are above 19s. a week, and does the right hon. Gentleman think that that is fair treatment of these old soldiers?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I am not sure of the figure, but there is a scale beyond which the special campaign pension is not payable.

Mr. TAYLOR: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this matter with a view to allowing these old soldiers to enjoy their special campaign pension as well as their old age pension? They are no better off.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I wish that I could, but of course that would involve the question of further funds being granted for the purpose.

Mr. BECKETT: Has it not been the custom to regard other cases of special campaign pensions as for services rendered and not as a charity grant; is it right, therefore, to take it away?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I do not think that either of those terms can apply to the special campaign pensions; they are in a special class by themselves.

Mr. STEPHEN: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think, in view of the cost of living and other considerations, that he ought to go into this matter and see if it be not possible to grant a higher limit?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It is not a case of what I think; it would be easily solved if it were a question of what I think; but the question of funds is important.

Mr. TAYLOR: Do I understand from the reply that the right hon. Gentleman's Department is under an obligation to reduce this pension automatically when the old age pension is granted?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Not quite; the special campaign pension is only payable to old soldiers whose total income is under a certain scale. If the receipt of the old age pension brings them beyond that scale, the special campaign pension is not payable, and they are not then entitled to it.

Mr. CRAWFURD: Is the right hon. Gentleman right when he says that the special campaign pension is payable to all old soldiers?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I did not say so.

Oral Answers to Questions — GENERAL ELECTION.

TERRITORIAL ARMY (VOTING FACILITIES).

Sir ASSHETON POWNALL: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for War what arrangements in connection with the General Election will be made for Territorials in camp?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Territorials who are registered as Parliamentary electors and are absent at annual training in camp will be able either to record their vote as absent voters or to obtain leave and vote in person. Those who wish to vote as absent voters will be required to send in their applications on the appropriate form to the Registration Officer as indicated in the Instructions about to be issued. A stock of the appropriate form will be available at the headquarters of those units which are due to be in camp on polling day, and instructions will be issued that all ranks are to be given the
opportunity of obtaining this form and filling it in before going to camp. Posters will be displayed in the drill-halls of the units concerned calling attention to these arrangements. Territorials who have been put on the absent voters list under this procedure will receive their ballot papers in camp and post them to the returning officer in the usual way. Territorials who wish to vote in person will be granted leave for the purpose as laid down in paragraph 245 of the Regulations for the Territorial Army.
As regards activities prior to polling day, as permission cannot be granted for speakers or canvassers to visit the camps or for Territorial officers and other ranks in camp to institute or take part in demonstrations for party or political purposes, arrangements will be made for the grant of leave from camp to those Territorials who so desire it from 27th May until after the election. Such leave, as well as leave granted to enable a Territorial to record his vote, will count as days in camp for the purpose of pay and allowances, bounty proficiency grant and the Territorial Efficiency Medal.
Territorials who are granted leave either to vote or for the period prior to polling day and do not return to camp will be given free conveyance as if they had returned from camp at the normal end of the training, provided they have completed eight days in camp.

Mr. MONTAGUE: I take it that there is no longer any camp censorship of letters?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No, certainly not.

Mr. MONTAGUE: There used to be.

Mr. CLYNES: As there has been no previous official announcement of the date of the Election, may we take it that it is the date mentioned in the right hon. Gentleman's reply?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The right hon. Gentleman did not observe my caution. I said "from the 27th May until after the Election." I mentioned no date.

Mr. THURTLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say the maximum amount of leave which is to be granted from the 27th May?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No, Sir; I said "from the 27th May until after the Election," and until the date of the Election is fixed I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman.

Major MacANDREW: Are Territorials who are taking part in the Election permitted to wear their uniforms?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: There is nothing to prevent them going to the poll in uniform, but I must refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the Regulations with regard to wearing uniforms at meetings and so forth.

Mr. STEPHEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why speakers from the various parties should not be allowed to address the soldiers?

Mr. TAYLOR: Under what paragraph of the King's Regulations does the right hon. Gentleman forbid meetings at Territorial camps?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANIS: I cannot without notice give the number of the Regulation, but the hon. Gentleman will find that it is so.

Mr. CRAWFURD: May we assume that, in the interests of strict neutrality as between the various parties, the right hon. Gentleman himself will refrain from visiting these camps?

Dr. VERNON DAVIES: If a Territorial who leaves camp to record his vote returns to camp, will he be granted a free pass?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No, he cannot have it both ways. He can have a free pass home once, but not twice.

POLLING DAY.

Mr. BATEY: 45.
asked the Prime Minister, if he will take steps to provide that there shall be a general holiday on the polling day at the forthcoming General Election.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Churchill): No, Sir.

Mr. BATEY: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware of the very great difficulty that many electors have in recording their votes after they have finished work for the day?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The statutory hours of polling are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but a
candidate or election agent is empowered, at the time of the nomination, to notify that he wishes the polling to commence at 7 a.m. or be kept open till 9 p.m. The enactment of a statutory general holiday would be attended by many complications. For one thing, it would render the payment of wages for that day not obligatory upon employers. At any rate, there would be many difficulties, and it has never been done in the past.

Mr. BATEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be more difficulty at the next Election—which we have been told is to take place on the 30th May—than before—

HON. MEMBERS: Why?

Mr. BATEY: I will tell the right hon. Gentleman. It is because of the manner in which the Government have increased the hours of miners.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

SCOTLAND.

Mr. BARR: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the total number of houses, including the steel houses, completed in Scotland with State assistance from 1919 till 1st October, 1928; the total capital cost of these houses; and the amount of the State subsidy paid in respect thereof?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): The total number of houses, including steel houses, completed in Scotland with State assistance from 1919 to 1st October, 1928, was 82,844, and the amount of State subsidy paid at the latter date was £8,268,027 9s. 3d. I regret that the capital cost of these houses is not available.

STATISTICS.

Mr. WELLOCK: 35.
asked the Minister of Health the number of houses under construction and the number authorised but not started under the Housing Acts of 1923 and 1924 respectively on 1st April?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): At 1st April, 1929, the position was as follows:


Under construction:



Houses.


1923 Act
28,359


1924 Act
27,628


Authorised but not started:


1923 Act
57,229


1924 Act
32,449

Mr. MONTAGUE: Do those figures include steel houses?

Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONE: As all these houses are being built under pre-1925 Acts, how does the Conservative party justify the figure of 800,000 houses?

Sir J. POWER: 36.
asked the Minister of Health the number of assisted houses completed during the three months ended 31st March, 1929; and if he can furnish any estimate of the extent to which building was retarded by the severe frost during the quarter in question?

Sir K. WOOD: The number of houses completed in the quarter ended 31st March, 1929, was 20,225. Building was undoubtedly retarded by the severe frost experienced during this period, but I am afraid it is not practicable to estimate any reliable figure to express this quantitatively.

Mr. TAYLOR: Will the right hon. Gentleman give sympathetic consideration where the building has been delayed on this account, and will he consider the advisibility of extending the date?

Sir K. WOOD: That is another matter altogether.

IMPROVEMENT SCHEME, SOUTHWARK.

Mr. NAYLOR: 42.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has had submitted to him the plans for clearance and rebuilding in the neighbourhood of East Street, King and Queen Street, and Browning Street, Southwark; if so, whether he is satisfied that adequate arrangements are being made for the accommodation of the families to be displaced pending the completion of the scheme; and whether he will take steps to secure that the families now living in the district shall have preference as tenants of the new houses?

Sir K. WOOD: I understand that the London County Council have decided to make an improvement scheme in respect
of the area referred to by the hon. Member, but no scheme has yet been submitted to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. NAYLOR: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries as to the cause of the delay?

Sir K. WOOD: I will if the hon. Gentleman desires it. Perhaps he will let me know the exact particulars.

ARTISAN DWELLINGS.

Sir WALTER de FRECE: 44.
asked the Minister of Health the three cheapest types of artisan dwellings which have received the subsidy in the last six months; the places of erection; and the details of expenditure, including the cost of land?

Sir K. WOOD: My right hon. Friend has no information as to the cheapest types which have received a subsidy in the last six months, but the lowest prices obtained in tenders for the erection of dwellings which have been accepted by local authorities during that period are: Nottingham, £217 per flat; Gateshead, £234 per flat; and Carlisle, £240 per house, excluding the cost of land and development. In Gateshead the cost of land worked out at about £8 per flat, and the cost of street and sewer works at about £40. In the other two cases the houses form part of the development of large estates, and information is not available as to the portion of total cost of land and street works properly chargeable to the individual schemes.

Mr. MONTAGUE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what in particular constitutes an artisan dwelling?

Sir K. WOOD: That, I should think, may be defined by Act of Parliament. The premises referred to here, where the cost is £217 per flat, have an area of 500 superficial feet, one living room (large), one bedroom (large), and the usual offices. Bathroom accommodation is also provided in the building.

Mr. MONTAGUE: I take it that an artisan dwelling is not necessarily a cheap dwelling?

Sir K. WOOD: No, Sir; I think the authorities at Nottingham would very strongly resent that description.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

POOR LAW RELIEF, GLASGOW AND GOVAN.

Mr. STEPHEN: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of men and women who have been in receipt of able-bodied relief in Glasgow and Govan, respectively, for each week of this year to the latest available date?

Sir J. GILMOUR: As the answer is in tabular form, I propose, with the hon.

MEN and WOMEN in receipt of able-bodied relief and their dependants.


—
Persons in receipt of relief.
Dependants.


Men.
Women.
Total.
Wives.
Children.
Total.


GLASGOW.


15th January
…
…
6,784
544
7,328
4,895
12,349
17,244


15th February
…
…
6,847
515
7,362
4,882
12,556
17,438


15th March
…
…
6,782
502
7,284
4,820
12,397
17,217


15th April
…
…
6,654
460
7,114
4,733
12,188
16,921


GOVAN.


15th January
…
…
4,889
504
5,393
3,331
8,256
11,587


15th February
…
…
4,841
494
5,335
3,157
7,671
10,828


15th March
…
…
4,662
500
5,162
3,086
7,518
10,604


15th April
…
…
4,441
498
4,939
2,962
7,285
10,247

POLICE COURT CONVICTIONS, GLASGOW.

Mr. STEPHEN: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of persons who have been convicted of offences in Glasgow Eastern Police Court and the number of those under 21 years of age; and if he can give similar figures for Glasgow Northern and Glasgow Western Police Courts, respectively, for the first three months of this year?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The total numbers of persons convicted in the Glasgow Eastern, Northern and Western Police Courts during the first three months of the year 1929 were 1,109, 636 and 616, respectively. The numbers of persons under 21 years of age included in these totals were 484, 231, and 191, respectively.

Mr. STEPHEN: Can the right hon Gentleman say why the number is so much larger in the Eastern Police Court,

Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

I regret that figures on a weekly basis are not available. The following table gives the particulars, taken from the monthly returns furnished by the Inspectors of Poor of Glasgow and Govan, as to the number of men and women and their dependants in receipt of able-bodied relief on the 15th of each of the first four months of 1929:

and is he aware that owing to there being no open spaces a lot of young men in that district are harassed by the police in the streets?

Sir J. GILMOUR: No, Sir, I have no reason to suppose that any one is being unduly or improperly harassed by the police. As regards the area of open space available, as the hon. Member knows, we are all anxious to see it increased.

VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS (TRANSFERS).

Mr. WESTWOOD: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of voluntary schools transferred to education authorities under Section 18 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, giving the number, respectively, transferred by sale, lease, or otherwise, to each of the respective education authorities?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on 27th November, 1928, as to the number of the schools in question in each education area. I am obtaining the additional details now asked for, and will communicate them to the hon. Member in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

FIRST AID REGULATIONS.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 16.
asked the Secretary for Mines when the new regulations relating to first-aid appliances, &c., at collieries were issued; and what steps his inspectors are taking to see that such regulations are being adhered to.

The SECRETARY for MINES (Commodore Douglas King): The First Aid Regulations at present in force are those of 10th July, 1913, and their observance is checked by inspections at all the collieries. The proposed new Regulations on this subject are being discussed with representative bodies of the industry, and have not yet been issued.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is it the intention under the new regulations to insist upon skilled ambulance men being available both at pit tops and pit bottoms in cases of injury?

Commodore KING: As I say, the details of the new regulations are now under discussion among those interested in the industry, and I cannot give a definite reply.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Will the particular case which was brought to the attention of the hon. and gallant Member a few weeks ago be brought to the notice of those who are considering these regulations?

Commodore KING: Oh, yes, all relevant matters will be considered.

Mr. SHINWELL: Is it not the case that the proposed new regulations have been before the Department since 1924, and what is the reason for this delay?

Commodore KING: That is not the case. The regulations in the form now being submitted were drawn up only last autumn.

Mr. SHINWELL: But is the hon. and gallant Member aware that in 1924 the Department were considering proposed new regulations in respect of first-aid appliances?

Commodore KING: The hon. Member must not complain that I have brought to completion what was started in his time.

Mr. SHINWELL: May I ask why these regulations have not yet been brought to completion?

Commodore KING: Because they have not yet received the full consent and approval of those interested in the industry.

FINANCIAL DEFICIENCY, YORKSHIRE.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 17.
asked the Secretary for Mines what was the total deficiency owing by the Yorkshire mine workers to the mine owners at the last available date?

Commodore KING: I am informed that at the end of February last it was 7¾ million pounds.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

RAILWAY PASSENGER CARRIAGES (LADIES' COMPARTMENTS).

Mr. DAY: 18.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he will make representations to the various railway companies of Great Britain asking them to have one or more compartments set aside and labelled for ladies only on all non-corridor trains?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): I have brought the hon. Member's suggestion to the notice of the railway companies.

Mr. DAY: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say what has been the reply and whether the companies propose to deal with these carriages as suggested?

Colonel ASHLEY: When I receive the replies I will communicate with the hon. Member.

RIVER TAY (ROAD BRIDGE).

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: 19.
asked the Minister of Transport whether the plans for the proposed Tay road bridge are now complete; and when does he intend to publish a report?

Colonel ASHLEY: No, Sir. The preliminary report of the engineer has not yet been received. As I informed the hon. Member on the 19th March, I expect to receive this report next month. The question of publication is a separate matter which can be considered in due course.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: As there is considerable competition between the three political contractors, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman push forward the specifications so that the most liberal offer may be accepted by the community especially interested?

Colonel ASHLEY: I do not think that I can usefully add anything to my answer until I receive the report.

RIVER SEVERN (BARRAGE).

Sir WALTER PRESTON: 20.
asked the Minister of Transport whether anything further is being done about building a barrage across the River Severn and generating electric power by tidal water; and how many men is it estimated would be employed on this scheme if it were put in hand?

Colonel ASHLEY: The question of the practicability of constructing a barrage across the River Severn for the purposes of generating electric power by tidal water is being investigated by an expert committee which was appointed on the recommendation of the Committee of Civil Research. It is not possible to give any useful estimate of the number of men who might be employed on any scheme of this kind.

Sir W. PRESTON: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say when they will make their report?

Colonel ASHLEY: I could not say.

Captain GUNSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this scheme excites considerable apprehension among authorities in Sharpness and Avonmouth Docks, and, if the scheme is proposed, will he see that the representatives of these ports have full opportunity of representing their views?

Colonel ASHLEY: I think I had better wait until the Committee report.

Mr. TAYLOR: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say how long the Committee have been sitting?

Colonel ASHLEY: Quite a long time.

BROADCASTING (TELEVISION).

Mr. DAY: 21.
asked the Postmaster-General whether any agreement has now been arrived at between his Department and the British Broadcasting Corporation by which facilities will be granted for the purpose of broadcasting by television; which station the British Broadcasting Corporation will be utilising for these experiments; and will he give particulars?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir William Mitchell-Thomson): I have already announced my willingness to agree to a station of the British Broadcasting Corporation being utilised for television experiments outside broadcasting hours. The corporation, however, cannot provide the desired facilities for simultaneous transmission of speech and television until the completion of their new station at Brookmans Park, which is expected to be ready in July next.

Mr. DAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the broadcast television will comprise all the services of television, or only one? Will it comprise the new one which has just been brought out in Vienna?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Those particular arrangements are matters between the television companies and the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: Would it not be a considerable handicap to the success of broadcasting if listeners saw some of the speakers?

Mr. DAY: Do we understand that it is only permission For the Baird system, or that the other companies will have the same opportunities?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: No other application has been made to me.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

NIGHT TELEPHONE SERVICE.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 22.
asked the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to a coroner's criticism at a Surrey inquest of the telephone service, in which he stated that it was
not the first case that had come before him where an urgent summons had been sent through to the telephone exchange during the night and no reply had been received; and what steps he intends to take to render the night telephone service efficient?

Mr. R. MORRISON: 23.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he has held an inquiry into the alleged failure of the night telephone service to which attention was drawn at a recent inquest at Croydon; and what is the result?

Sir ROBERT THOMAS: 27.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the father of a young man taken ill recently in the early hours of the morning attempted to telephone for a doctor, but failed to get a reply from the exchange, although he tried for three-quarters of an hour; that the coroner subsequently stated that this was not the first case in his experience when the exchange made no reply to an urgent night summons; and whether he will make a general statement on the question of night staffs for telephone exchanges?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I have made full inquiry into this case, and greatly regret to find that there was a failure of the night telephone service on this occasion. It has not been possible to determine the precise cause of the failure, and I can find no record of a similar case in the same locality. A system of periodical testing has been for some time in force at night telephonist exchanges, and the latest records show that the average speed of answer by the operators is satisfactory. I propose to extend this testing system further, and am at present considering the best means of so doing.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that there has been very considerable, almost universal, dissatisfaction with this service for a very long time? Has his attention been called to the specific complaints made by doctors, and, in particular, by the hon. secretary of the blood transfusion service of the Red Cross Society, in which allegations are made about loss of life owing to the delays in this service? Is he doing anything to expedite an inquiry into this matter?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I cannot say that I have an accurate recollection of that particular complaint, but I am aware that there have been complaints and that is the reason why the tests were made. As I have said, the tests show that on the average the speed of answering is not unsatisfactory. The average speed of answering, taken all over, is something like 10 seconds.

Sir R. THOMAS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the specific case mentioned the coroner said that it was a very serious case, and was not by any means the first within his knowledge?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I am aware of the statement made by the coroner, who was kind enough to communicate personally with myself, and it is for that reason that special attention was paid to the investigation of the case; but, as I have said, it is impossible to trace the precise fault or failure, and I have no record of any similar case.

Sir R. THOMAS: The coroner said that he knows of other cases.

Mr. DAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the night staffs are greatly reduced, and that that is the cause of this delay?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: There has been no reduction.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the Department experimenting with any particular device for dealing with emergency calls?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Oh, yes, and the trouble here was that owing to a mechanical defect it failed to function.

TELEPHONE FACILITIES (GOOD EASTER).

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 24.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he can now make a statement with regard to the provision of telephone facilities at Good Easter?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: A canvass will take place next week for a rural exchange in the neighbourhood. If this is successful, and the prospects of success are reported to be good, a call office will be provided at Good Easter.

BEAM WIRELESS AND CABLE SERVICES.

Mr. WELLOCK: 25.
asked the Postmaster-General if he will state the number of messages or words transmitted by the Government's Beam wireless telegraph system and by its cables, respectively, during the first quarter of the present year and, for comparison, during the first quarter of last year?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The following were the approximate numbers of telegrams (sent and received) in the first quarter:


By the Post Office Beam stations:


Last year
451,000


This year
506,000


By the Imperial Cables:


Last year
115,000


This year
123,000

MAIL BAG THEFTS.

Sir R. THOMAS: 26.
asked the Postmaster-General, in view of the recent frequency of mail-bag robberies, whether he proposes to transfer to Scotland Yard the entire work of preventing and investigating mail-bag thefts; and will he make a general statement on this matter?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The course suggested by the hon. Member is really impracticable as in some cases not only do technical questions of internal Post Office working arise, in which case investigation by the Post Office staff is most appropriate, but the theft may have occurred in circumstances which can best be investigated by the local or railway police.

Mr. CRAWFURD: When mail-bags are transported by railway does the entire responsibility rest with the railway company, or does the Department exercise supervision?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: There is a further question on that point.

Mr. DAY: Are the inquiries with regard to these mail-bag robberies proceeding to the satisfaction of the right hon. Gentleman?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I cannot say anything more on that point than I have already said.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 29.
asked the Postmaster-General whether it is the usual practice to allow mail-bags to be taken off the trains by railway servants; and, if so, whether he will consider issuing instructions that postal matter may only be handled by or in the presence of Post Office servants?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The practice is a common one, especially as regards parcel mails, for the transfer of which the railway companies are responsible by law. In view of the number of mail-bags which are conveyed daily by train in all directions throughout the country, the cost of providing Post Office staff at every station of transfer would be out of all proportion to any additional security which might be obtained.

Mr. CRAWFURD: Accepting what the Postmaster-General has said, would it not be possible for the Department to exercise a little more supervision over the method adopted of storing mail-bags during the night hours?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I am engaged with the railway companies on the whole matter, but, as I have already said, the responsibility in the case of parcel mails is primarily with the railway companies.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 30.
asked the Postmaster-General whether it is customary to leave mail-bags overnight unguarded in ordinary railway station parcel offices; and, if so, what steps, if any, he proposes to take for the proper protection of postal matter in transit, in view of the rifling of the mail at Kendal on the night of 17th–18th April?

Mr. DAY: 31.
asked the Postmaster-General whether the Scotland Yard authorities have been asked to assist in the inquiries into the recent mail-bag robbery which took place at Kendal on 18th April, 1929; and whether his Department has now introduced any fresh safeguards to protect mail-bags during transit on the railways?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Such an arrangement is not uncommon where the mails reach the station at an hour when the Post Office is closed and no postal staff is on duty. The robbery at Kendal was reported to the police authorities
without delay. The Committee to which I referred in my statement of the 4th of March is examining in detail the question whether any additional means of providing protection for mails in transit are practicable within reasonable limits of cost and without involving such delay to mails as would inconvenience the public.

Mr. DAY: Can the Postmaster-General answer that part of my question which asks whether the Scotland Yard authorities have been asked to assist in the inquiry into the recent mail bag robbery which took place at Kendal?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The local police have the matter in hand. I am not certain whether Scotland Yard have taken a hand in those investigations, but the local police, who are primarily responsible, have the matter in hand.

Mr. R. MORRISON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Department are paying any compensation to the people who have suffered through these robberies?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I should require notice of any question of that kind.

TUBE (EXPLOSIONS).

Sir R. THOMAS: 28.
asked the Postmaster-General what action he has taken, or is about to take, as a result of the Report made by the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the circumstances of the New Oxford Street explosions of 20th and 21st December, who recommend the immediate examination of the whole of the existing Post Office tube, the installation of adequate ventilation, and the employment of continuous detectors to give warning of the presence of gas; and can he made a statement regarding the estimated extent and the cost of the alterations required?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The Commissioners' recommendations are receiving the close attention of my advisers, but the nature and extent of the work involved is such that it must be some time before it is possible to make any statement of the kind desired.

ROUNDWAY DOWNS.

Mr. HURD: 32.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that part of the Crown lands on Roundway Downs, near Devizes, has been wired in and that public indignation and breaches of the peace have arisen from the interruption in the enjoyment by the public of this historic open space; and what steps will be taken to safeguard the public interest?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness): I have gone very carefully into the matters which my hon. Friend has previously brought to my notice in a personal interview, and to which he refers in the question. They involve points of some difficulty and are the subject of litigation pending in the High Court. It would therefore be improper for me to make any statement bearing on the merits of the case. I may say, however, that the Commissioners of Crown Lands are doing everything in their power to bring about an amicable settlement between the parties.

PLANTATIONS (FIRE INSURANCE).

Viscount SANDON: 33.
asked the hon. and gallant Member for Rye as representing the Forestry Commissioners, whether plantations are insured against fire and other risks; whether any expenditure falls on the Commission in these connections; if so, to what monetary extent in a year; whether preventive legislation has been contemplated as to such fires; and how many trees, stating their value, have been so lost annually?

Colonel Sir GEORGE COURTHOPE (Forestry Commissioner): The Forestry Commission's plantations are not insured against fire or other risks, the general practice of the public service being that no insurance should be effected against the risk of any loss, which, if it arose, would fall directly upon public funds. 2s. 6d. per £100 expenditure on plantations is however carried to fire insurance reserve in the Commission's commercial accounts. The Commissioners are bearing in mind the possibility of legislation and will ask for additional powers if it is found that such powers can be made effective. During each of the last three forest years ended 30th September, which were normal seasons the area of the Commission's
plantations damaged by fire has been 571 acres, 563 and 545 respectively, the damage being £1,935, £2,073 and £2,874 respectively. It is not possible to state the number of tree plants lost but the average number per acre may be put at 1,700. During the present abnormal fire season, which still continues, the losses are proving much higher.

Mr. SKELTON: Can the hon. Baronet state what is the total acreage belonging to the Commissioners so that we may be able to judge the total figure in relation to the acreage?

Mr. NOEL BUXTON: Is provision made by way of turning over the soil along the boundary as is commonly done abroad?

Sir G. COURTHOPE: Yes, fire lines are maintained wherever possible, but during the last few months it has frequently happened that they have been ineffectual because the high winds have carried sparks from the bracken over the fire lines into other blocks of timber.

Viscount SANDON: Can the hon. and gallant Baronet say to what extent this 2s. 6d. meets the losses?

Sir G. COURTHOPE: It will certainly meet the losses so far as estimated under normal circumstances, but it will not go very far towards meeting the losses under abnormal conditions.

MALTESE PARLIAMENT.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 34.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any information in regard to recent happenings in the Maltese Parliament; and, if so, will he convey the same to this House?

Captain WALLACE (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to answer this question The hon. Member will, I think, realise that such matters fall outside the province of this House.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the hon. and gallant Member aware of the recent imprisonment of the ex-Chancellor of the Maltese Parliament, and can he make any statement on that subject?

Captain WALLACE: I am afraid that I cannot make a statement on that question,
but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put another question on that specific point.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH.

INFLUENZA.

Mr. MALONE: 37.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the Returns of the Registrar-General showing that in the first quarter of this year the deaths recorded exceeded the births by 24,105, the deaths for the most part being due to the influenza epidemic; whether he is aware that in the Midlands in the first week of March the death-rate from influenza alone, not including derivative diseases, reached the figure of 9.67 per 1,000; and whether any research into this disease has been undertaken by the Medical Research Council during the past year or is being undertaken or contemplated by the council at the present time?

Sir K. WOOD: The returns issued by the Registrar-General show that in the first quarter of this year the deaths in 107 great towns in England and Wales exceeded the births by 25,108. The deaths numbered 111,003, influenza being certified as one of the causes of death in 12,711 cases. No similar figures are yet available for the country as a whole. The death-rate from influenza quoted in the second part of the question relates only to the great towns in the Midlands. As regards the last part of the question, I am informed that the Medical Research Council are actively promoting researches into the group of diseases to which influenza is believed to belong.

INTERNATIONAL SANITARY CONVENTION.

Sir W. de FRECE: 52.
asked the Minister of Health whether there exists any international machinery, and, if so, of what nature, to enable the fullest prior exchange of views between the health authorities of different countries before, by any one country, a health or sanitary ordinance is issued against the subjects of another?

Sir K. WOOD: The International Sanitary Convention of 1926 defines the measures that may be taken by countries which are parties to the Convention in order to prevent the introduction and spread of certain communicable diseases.
The Convention does not require that there shall be an exchange of views between the countries concerned before the restrictions authorised by the Convention are imposed.

CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS ACT.

Mr. BATEY: 38.
asked the Minister of Health if he can give an estimate of the number of widows who are not in receipt of either a widow's pension or an old age pension?

Sir K. WOOD: The answer is in the negative.

Mr. BATEY: Are we to understand stand that the Minister of Health introduced the Contributory Pensions Bill in 1927 and did not know the number of widows who were not in receipt of pensions?

Sir K. WOOD: That is not the question.

Mr. BATEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that my question is whether the Minister can give an estimate of the number of widows who are not in receipt of either a widow's pension or an old age pension.

Sir K. WOOD: Yes.

Mr. MONTAGUE: If the Government cannot give these figures, how can they justify the statement that many thousands of these people have been relieved from the pressure of want?

Sir K. WOOD: That does not arise.

Mr. BATEY: If the Minister of Health has the number of widows in the country, he must also have the number receiving pensions, and why cannot he give the figure?

Sir K. WOOD: I have gone carefully into this matter myself, and the answer I have given is one that has been supplied to me. I would remind hon. Members opposite that but for the Conservative Government no widows would be receiving pensions at all.

Mr. TAYLOR: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that, when the Actuary's Report was presented to his Department, no figures were given as to the number of widows in the country?

Sir K. WOOD: That question does not arise.

Mr. MONTAGUE: May we take it that the figures on the posters are unofficial?

Mr. BATEY: 39.
asked the Minister of Health the amount, separately, of contributions paid by employers, workmen, and the Treasury from the commencement of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Pensions Fund up to 31st March, 1929; the amount paid, separately, to widows and children, orphans and old age pensioners at 65 years of age; and the amount remaining in the fund?

Sir K. WOOD: As the answer involves a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. WESTWOOD: Can we have an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not raid the surplus accumulated in that fund?

Following is the answer:

The total amount of contributions paid under the Act in England and Wales from the commencement to 31st March, 1929, was approximately:—

£33,250,000 by employers.

£31,750,000 by work-people.

During the same period the State contribution to the Treasury Pensions Account under Section 11 (3) of the Act was £12,000,000, but as the hon. Member is aware this contribution is applicable to the whole of Great Britain.

The amount of pensions paid in England and Wales during the period specified was approximately £37,220,000 made up of:

£21,370,000 widows' pensions (including children's allowances).

£790,000 orphans' pensions.

£15,060,000 Old Age Pensions to persons between 65 and 70 years of age.

With regard to the last part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Mr. Wellock) on the 18th instant.

Sir W. de FRECE: 43.
asked the Minister of Health the number of children
in whose cases the allowances, under the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, have been extended from 14 to 16 under the condition that they attended school; and what proportion of the entire total of children with such allowances this number represents?

Sir K. WOOD: The number of children between the ages of 14 and 16 who are in receipt of allowances or orphans' pensions under the Contributory Pensions Act, 1925, because they have remained at school, is 12,498. That number is approximately 5.2 per cent. of the total number of children who are in receipt of children's allowances or orphans' pensions. These figures relate to England and Wales.

Mr. BECKETT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why it is possible for him to get these figures, when it is not possible for him to get figures as to the number of widows who cannot get pensions?

Sir K. WOOD: That is very obvious. This question relates to the operation of the scheme.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is it the case that a child's pension is withheld if the child is absent from school, even when a medical certificate is provided?

Sir K. WOOD: I must have notice of that question. If it be a case relating to my Department—which, of course, does not deal with Scotland—I will certainly look into it.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

POOR LAW RELIEF (TEST WORK).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 40.
asked the Minister of Health whether his instruction that able-bodied men must be put upon a full-time task in order to obtain relief is universal throughout the country?

Sir K. WOOD: There are areas, notably the distressed mining areas, in which any complete observance of the Relief Regulation Order, 1911, is impracticable, but compliance with the Regulations has to be made wherever the facilities are available.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: May I ask why, when it has been the practice of certain boards of guardians, including the Devonport Board of Guardians, to give men a certain amount of time off in which to seek work, that privilege is now taken away?

Sir K. WOOD: The hon. Member will recollect that that matter is dealt with in his next question.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 41.
asked the Minister of Health for what reasons his Department has ordered that for an able-bodied man to receive relief in Devonport he must do a full day's work at breaking stones which are used for no purpose whatever; whether he is aware that Devonport men have to walk considerable distances both to and from the stone-breaking site at Prince Rock; and, in view of the fact that his recent instructions will effectively prevent these men from looking for other work, he will reconsider them?

Sir K. WOOD: The Devonport Guardians have facilities for compliance with the Regulations in force. I must, however, point out that the task at present imposed by the guardians does not consist of breaking stones, and that it is for the guardians, if they dislike the sorting and levelling work which they at present require, to submit an alternative. As regards the last two parts of the question, allowances can and indeed should be made in any test work scheme both for walking time, where appreciable distances are involved, and so as to give full opportunity of seeking other work.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Has the right hon. Gentleman, on the advice of any of his inspectors, suggested to the Devonport Board of Guardians that they might have a test in Devonport itself, and of a different nature from the test which is at present imposed, so that the men, in the first place, should not have to walk long distances, and, in the second place, should not have to break these stones as a test?

Sir K. WOOD: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has appreciated what I said in my reply. The matter of test work is one for the board of guardians themselves. I have stated that stone-breaking is not the kind of work in operation in Devonport, but that it is
another class of work, and, if the guardians themselves want to vary that they should put forward suggestions to that end. As regards the question of walking, and of time for seeking work, that again is a matter for the guardians themselves.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Have general instructions been given throughout the country that reasonable opportunities should be given to men to look for work when they are unemployed and have test work to do?

Sir K. WOOD: That would be a part of every scheme.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: But has the right hon. Gentleman given these instructions, and is he aware of actual cases which I have brought to his notice where men cannot get these opportunities of seeking work?

Sir K. WOOD: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will bring any cases to my notice, I will look into them, but I certainly think that guardians as a whole do that.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: rose
—

Mr. SPEAKER: We are getting on extremely slowly with questions.

COAL INDUSTRY.

Sir J. POWER: 53.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of coal-miners now unemployed as compared with the end of June, 1928; and whether any calculation has been made as to what extent the decrease is due to absorption into the industry and to transference, respectively?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): At 25th March, 1929, the insured persons classified as belonging to the coal mining industry recorded as unemployed in Great Britain numbered 147,534, including 134,776 wholly unemployed and 12,758 temporarily stopped. The corresponding figures for 25th June, 1928, were: wholly unemployed, 168,966 and temporarily stopped 130,483, giving a reduction in the numbers wholly unemployed of 34,190 and in the numbers temporarily stopped of 117,725. The greater part of the decrease in the numbers temporarily stopped is no doubt due to the resumption of fuller
working. Of those wholly unemployed it is not possible to say precisely how many have been transferred to other industries and how many re-absorbed. But, between 23rd June, 1928, and 23rd March, 1929, the numbers of wage-earners on the colliery books, as returned to the Mines Department, increased by about 13,000; this figure represents roughly the increased absorption of workers, over and above the fuller employment of those already partially employed.

Mr. LAWSON: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that large numbers of men who have been re-employed are actually working for not more than they were getting when they were unemployed, and that in many cases they are receiving less for working than they were for unemployment benefit? Is he aware of the conditions under which things are being conducted to-day?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, Sir, that has nothing to do with the question put to me. If the hon. Member wishes to put a question to my Department, we will look into the matter.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many hundreds of thousands of miners are working short time from three days a week and upwards?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The number returned as working short time at the present moment, as I have already stated in my answer, is 12,758 temporarily stopped.

Mr. PALING: Does "temporarily stopped" include all those working short time in addition to those temporarily stopped owing to breakdowns?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: If the hon. Gentleman will put down a question, I will obtain the information.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are hundreds of thousands of mine workers working short time in the country, some only for three days a week and some for four days, and that at least a majority of them are receiving some unemployment benefit?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I can make inquiries as to numbers, but that
there are hundreds of thousands at the present moment I do not believe for an instant.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Of course, there are; you know there are.

UNITED STATES (BRITISH DEBT).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 47.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total amount that has been paid to America on account of the British debt to date; and what is the total amount that has been received from our former allies in the Great War?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The total amount paid to the United States Government on account of the British War Debt to date is £246,600,000; the total amount received by this country on account of Allied War Debts to date is £33,700,000.

REPARATION DYESTUFFS.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: 49.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what is the quantity and value of reparation dyes imported into this country; what value has been credited either to Germany or the Reparations Commission; and what is the quantity and value of the sale of them in this country by the Government?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel): The total quantity of reparation dyestuffs invoiced to His Majesty's Government was 9,523 tons. These have all been disposed of for the total amount of £2,187,167 11s. 2d. The amount debited to His Majesty's Government by the Reparation Commission was 31,297,000 gold marks. No reparation dyestuffs have been imported since 1925.

FRANCE (BRITISH WAR PAYMENTS).

Mr. SEXTON: 50.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the total amount paid during and after the War for trenches occupied by our troops in France, or for the transport of British
troops while in France by rail or any other means of transport, and for any land purchased in France to provide for the burial of British soldiers killed in action, respectively?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No payment was made for trenches in the battle area occupied by British troops in France; £25,500,000 was paid for the transport of British troops on French railways, of which £17,500,000 was paid to the railway companies through the French Government and £8,000,000 was by a special agreement, set off against the French War Debt to this country; the French Government presented to the Imperial War Graves Commission as a free gift all the land used for the burial of British soldiers killed in action and accordingly no payments were made for the purchase of land for this purpose.

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: Is it a fact that money was paid for trenches which were used for training behind the lines?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The principle upon which the British Government and the British nation embarked upon the War in France on French territory was that we paid our war expenses, and, following out that principle, various arrangements were made which can, of course, from time to time be represented in an unfavourable light by persons who by implication or otherwise have anti-French bias.

Mr. SEXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconcile this answer that no rent was paid for the occupation of trenches with the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Camberwell, North (Mr. Ammon) on the 15th May, 1923. In Volume 164, column 212, of the OFFICIAL REPORT the Under-Secretary of State for War, in reply to my hon. Friend, said:
Trenches—

Mr. SPEAKER: This is a matter which is more suitable for debate than for question and answer.

Mr. BECKETT: Does not the Chancellor of the Exchequer think that the French landlord cannot be blamed for taking rent which British landlords were very glad to take?

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (BUDGET CHANGES).

Mr. R. MORRISON: 51.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the number of Government employés who have lost their occupations in consequence of the abolition of the Tea Duty; and what steps are being taken to provide alternative employment for them?

Mr. SAMUEL: The question of the reductions and re-arrangements of the staff of the Customs and Excise Department which may be necessary as the result of the Budget changes is under consideration. The hon. Member may rest assured that every effort will be made to provide for the men displaced by absorption into vacancies caused by ordinary wastage in the Department or by transfer to other Departments.

Mr. MORRISON: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the first part of the question as to the number of employés concerned?

Mr. SAMUEL: Up to the present no one has been either discharged or transferred, so the point has not arisen.

Mr. SPEAKER: We have only got to Question No. 51, and this is one of the slowest days I have ever known.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. CLYNES: May I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can announce the business for Friday next?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir. On Friday, the first business will be the consideration of Lords Amendments to the Local Government (Scotland) Bill; we shall then take the remaining stages of the Gas Undertakings Bill from the Lords; and progress will be made with the Companies Bill which is expected to reach us from the House of Lords to-morrow (Wednesday). If there is time, other Orders on the Paper will be taken.

Major-General Sir ROBERT HUTCHISON: It is surely very inconvenient to many Scottish Members for a Scottish Bill of such importance as the Local Government (Scotland) Bill to be taken on Friday. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] We feel a certain amount of inconvenience when Friday' is devoted to
Scottish business. Many of our Members have to go so far by train to the North that we ought to have an important Bill like this with Amendments coming down from the House of Lords discussed on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Mr. CHURCHILL: In view of what the hon. and gallant Member has said, I will bring the matter to the notice of the Prime Minister, and I am quite sure that he will do his best to see that no further Scottish business is taken on Fridays during the present Session.

CHAIRMEN'S PANEL.

Mr. William Nicholson reported from the Chairmen's Panel: That they had discharged Major Sir Richard Barnett (appointed to act as Chairman of Standing Committee A in respect of the Bastardy (Witness Process) Bill and the Preservation of Infant Life Bill [Lords]); and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Short.

Report to lie upon the Table.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE A.

Mr. William Nicholson reported from the Committee of Selection: That they had added the following Seven Members to Standing Committee A (in respect of the Fire Brigade Pensions Bill): Viscountess Astor, Lieut-Colonel Fremantle, Sir Gerald Hurst, Miss Lawrence, Mr. Lunn, Miss Wilkinson, and Mr. Withers.

Mr. William Nicholson further reported from the Committee: That they had added the following Seven Members to Standing Committee A (in respect of the Bastardy (Witness Process) Bill and the Preservation of Infant Life Bill [Lords]): Mr. Colman, Sir George Hume, Mr. March, Mr. Palin, Mr. Savery, Captain Styles, and Mr. Robert Wilson.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

LEASEHOLDERS (SECURITY OF TENURE) BILL.

Order for Second Reading To-morrow read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm and give effect to a deed of trust relating to a gift by the first Earl of Iveagh for public purposes of property at Kenwood, in the Metropolitan boroughs of Hampstead and Saint Pancras, in the county of London, and the borough of Hornsey and the urban district of Finchley, in the county of Middlesex; and for purposes connected therewith" [Iveagh Bequest (Kenwood) Bill [Lords.]

IVEAGH BEQUEST (KENWOOD) BILL [LORDS].

Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

BILLS REPORTED.

Gosport and Fareham Omnibus Services Bill [Lords],

Chatham and District Traction Bill [Lords],

Jarrow and South Shields Traction Bill [Lords],

Halifax Corporation Bill [Lords],

Haslingden Corporation Bill [Lords],

Preston Corporation Bill [Lords],

London Electric Railway Companies (Co-ordination of Passenger Traffic) Bill,

London County Council (Co-ordination of Passenger Traffic) Bill,

Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PUBLICATION AND DEBATES' REPORTS.

Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence, brought up, and read;

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

[6TH ALLOTTED DAY.]

Considered in Committee.

[Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1929.

CLASS IV.

Orders of the Day — BOARD OF EDUCATION.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £26,649,899, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1930, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Education, and of the various Establishments connected therewith, including sundry Grants-in-Aid."—[NOTE.—£15,000,000 has been voted on account.]

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Lord Eustace Percy): In presenting these Estimates, the fifth for which I have been responsible, I hope the Committee will allow me to range rather more at large over the field than is customary on such occasions. I need not enter much into finance or statistics. Hon. Members have before them the usual Memorandum on the Estimates which they have had rather earlier this year, and they have before them also the Board's Report for the year 1928. Little need be said about the detailed problems of administration which ordinarily occupy attention when we are discussing the Estimates. I would rather ask the Committee to consider how profound has been the change in our whole conception of educational policy which has taken place during the last few years, and how great, and in some respects novel, are the responsibilities which that new conception will throw upon Parliament in the future.
Perhaps the Committee will pardon a little personal retrospect. I approached my task eagerly four and a half years ago as a difficult and very interesting administrative problem. To me it meant the unsolved problems of teachers' superannuation and salaries, defective school buildings, large classes, insufficient
secondary school accommodation, and so forth. It meant, also, certain less obvious problems in which. I was personally very interested; in particular, the reorganisation of elementary schools into senior and junior schools, closer relations between training colleges and universities, a better understanding on the subject of religious education, a simpler and cheaper machinery of administration and smoother co-operation between the partners in educational administration and teaching—the Board, the local authorities, the teachers and the voluntary bodies. In short, I looked at it as a problem of peace, continuity and efficiency. For three years we were working these things out, with a certain substantial measure of success. I do not say that with any self-complacency. The success achieved has been mainly due to the efforts of the partners of whom I have spoken, and not least, here let me pay a tribute, to the officers of the Board itself, who have given me an efficient and loyal support during these years which could not be surpassed by the staff of any Government Department in this or any other country in the world. In this connection I should like to mention a great public servant who has retired since the last Estimates were discussed in the House, Sir Hugh Orange, who occupied the position of accountant-general for many years, and to whose direction and efforts the sound finance of education in this country is very largely due.
Much remains to be done. We have, for instance, a Superannuation Act and a national settlement of salaries, now universally recognised and applied, but that settlement has not yet given final security to the teaching profession. We have such a problem as the downgrading of head teachers which still awaits complete solution. We can quote figures showing approved plans for the elimination of over 1,050 blacklisted school premises and the actual removal of more than 720 from the list, but the work is not yet half completed. We can show a great reduction in the size of classes, notwithstanding a stationary or rising school population and a great increase in the number of certificated teachers, but classes are still too large and some training college students still find it difficult to obtain posts. We can show growth in secondary school accommodation, in free places, in scholarships and
all the other points in our programme. We can show definition, settled aims and progress, but no finality. Still, a year ago I felt that effective measures had been taken over the whole field of these reforms, that these measures had already proved successful and that they would operate with cumulative force during the next few years, thanks to the practice of friendly co-operation and consultation which we had been able to establish with those whom I have called my partners in the work of education. But this point was no sooner reached than it became evident that such reforms in themselves and by themselves would be ineffectual and meaningless. It is our duty to see that children are taught under the best possible conditions, but good conditions are only a starting point. I am reminded of a sermon by an evangelical preacher of the old school who said to his congregation: "Make no mistake about it, you will none of you be saved because of your general niceness." That is true of education. The education of any child at any age must have a purpose, it must be part of a course and that course must be part of a long process of education, whether in school, college, factory or counting house, which will carry the child at least to the threshold of manhood.
The reorganisation of elementary schools into junior and senior schools has been in a peculiar sense the policy of the present Government, announced at the last election, embodied in Circular 1350 two months after the Government came into office, reinforced by a campaign of speeches in 1925, which amused hon. Members opposite, confirmed by the Hadow Report and finally defined by Circular 1397 of last year, in pursuance of which local authorities will next Autumn be submitting their second set of three-year programmes definitely devoted to the establishment of a complete provision of senior schools, offering a four-year course of higher education for children from the age of 11. But all this policy is meaningless if it is simply the division of children into two neat compartments according to age and it will remain meaningless by whatever name we call the senior school. Parents will not willingly abandon the old elementary school, provided or non-provided,
with its convenience of access, its traditions, its intimate connection with the life of the village and parish, merely in order to produce a school divided into more homogeneous classes. They ask what is the purpose of this reorganisation. Hitherto, we have been prevented from giving a satisfactory reply to this question by our inveterate national habit of building up our educational system piecemeal and leaving the pieces lying about without any coherent connection with each other.
4.0 p.m.
Let us indulge in another retrospect, not a personal one. One hundred years ago our educational system consisted of a number of public and grammar schools and the ancient universities. Those public and grammar schools were recognised feeders of the universities. During the nineteenth century besides greatly increasing the number of universities, we were mainly occupied in creating a complete platform, as it were, of elementary schools, and in building up a quite new type of educational institution—the technical schools and colleges. But our new elementary and technical schools were not connected in any coherent way either with each other or with the grammar school and the university. The elementary schools remained tied to the ground, the technical schools remained hovering in the air. The Act of 1902 was our first, and has remained hitherto our only effort at coherent educational architecture. That Act did establish an intimate connection between the elementary school and the grammar school, it saved many old grammar schools from extinction, and surrounded them with a wider family of secondary schools drawing selected pupils from the elementary school. But the technical school still remained a thing apart, and it soon became evident that the needs of the older pupils in the elementary schools could not be adequately met merely by offering opportunities to a few selected students to enter secondary schools.
During the 20 years after the Act of 1902, the school-leaving age was steadily raised until the upper standards in the elementary school were filled with pupils who had outgrown the old elementary curriculum. Elementary school teachers have been making the most amazingly successful efforts to cope with this problem,
but it became clear that something more must be done for the great mass of the rising generation of the country. Consequently, the Act of 1918 laid upon local education authorities the duty of providing practical and advanced instruction for the older children in the elementary schools, including children staying on voluntarily beyond the age of 14, and it provided for a new system of compulsory day continuation classes which would ensure that all children should pass through a continuous course of education at least up to the age of 16.
While the Act of 1918 thus aimed at prolonging the path of education for all children, that path still seemed to end in a blind alley. There was no sign that it was intended to lead to any particular point, unlike the path which led through the secondary school to the university. I do not say this in criticism of the great Minister of Education who was the author of that Act, and I quite agree with the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) who said he was perhaps the greatest Minister of Education we ever had in this country. But the fact is that the temper of the times in which the Act was passed made it impossible for him fully to carry out the scheme which he had in his mind. It was obvious to any that the path must lead to the technical colleges where the most ambitious pupils who had not gone to the secondary schools had always gone to continue their education, and in the rural areas to the agricultural institutes, about which we are unfortunately precluding from speaking on these Estimates, because they fall within the Estimates of my colleague the Minister of Agriculture. But what I am going to say about the technical college applies equally to the agricultural Institute and the rural schools which should lead up to that Institute. That does not, of course, mean that any child should be confined in his prospects to the technical school because he finds himself in a particular type of senior school. On the contrary, one of the essential ideas of our policy is to give every boy and girl a second chance at about the age of 13 of transferring to a school which will lead him to the university, but for the
great majority who go to work not later than 16, the prospect of higher education above the secondary stage must lie in the direction of the technical college. We all remember the curious suspicion of technical education which was rife at the end of the War. The demand for a working-class education which should be liberal, and not vocational, was pushed to a point where it practically dismissed the whole range of technical education as a badge of social servitude. I think Mr. Fisher himself would agree that it is this defect in our post-War conception of education rather than any passing pressure of economy which chiefly accounts for the fact that the continuation school provisions of the Act of 1918 have remained practically a dead letter.
Fortunately, in this matter, as in other matters, that sanguine confusion of mind which characterised so many of our ideas has given way to a better perspective, and there is beginning to emerge a new and clearer conception of a really national and universal system of education in which the technical college occupies an essential position with the university as the keystones of the twin arches on which the structure of national education is built. It has been my chief aim in the last year or so to focus this conception and to begin actively to work it out. Observe how, once this position of the technical college is properly focussed, the whole structure becomes coherent. Without this keystone school reorganisation, even if it leads to a longer school life, and is prolonged by a scheme of continuation classes, will fail in its effect, because the new schools and classes will lead nowhere. Without it our existing secondary schools cannot properly do their work, because there is no further continuous course of education for which they can prepare the great mass of their pupils who leave school not later than 16. Without it we cannot, under modern conditions of scientific production and marketing, make the earlier years of the work of the boy or girl in commerce or industry what we all know those years should be—years of education. Without it we cannot secure those benefits to the individual worker, and to our national industry itself, which result from a proper system of apprenticeship. Purely shop
apprenticeship is no longer possible except in a very few industries. Science and large scale organisation have combined to render absolutely necessary the co-operation of our technical schools with the factory and the workshop.
The Committee knows generally the steps that we have been taking to work out this new conception. We have tried to focus it in a preliminary way in the two publications issued by the Board last year—"The New Prospect in Education," and "Education for Commerce and Industry." We have undertaken a series of inquiries both into the organisation of technical education as a whole, and into the methods of education for particular branches of trade and industry. I am sometimes asked when the Committee on Salesmanship or the Committee on Engineering are going to report. These are a new kind of Committee, better, I think, than the usual Departmental Committee, and their work is not confined to the production of a formal report. The results of their labours will, of course, be published from time to time, but they are working in far closer connection with the Board than a Departmental Committee does, and the inquiries which they have undertaken, or which the Board undertakes on their behalf, are constantly branching out in new directions. For instance, we are now undertaking a special inquiry into the whole subject of the teaching of foreign languages in connection with salesmanship, and therefore, the emphasis of these Committees is less on their eventual formal reports or interim reports and more on the influence they are exerting all the time on the administration of the Board, on the local authorities, and, I believe through them, on the work in the schools.
The Board is now planning a series of inquiries on a subject which, I think, is of the very greatest importance: art teaching with particular reference to industrial art. We have already been doing some work in that direction. Our inspectors have been conducting inquiries into the whole subject of textile design on behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Education for the Cotton Industry. We are now preparing a report on the existing organisation of art education in this country generally,
and, before the publication of the report of the Balfour Committee, I had already been conducting preliminary discussions to ascertain the best method of starting a series of inquiries into the art requirements of various industries. Those discussions have led me to think that the time is ripe for a really new development in our teaching of industrial art. Both artists and industrialists are now really keenly conscious of our shortcomings and of the need of co-operation in overcoming them, and if we do see great progress in the future in this matter I think it will be very largely due to the remarkable work which has been done in the last few years at the Royal College of Art by Professor Rothenstein.
In all this we are attempting to build up standards for our new system of universal higher education. I should, of course, have much to say as to the steps which will be necessary to give permanent and enduring form to this new educational architecture if the rules which govern our Debates permitted me to enter into the question of legislation. As I cannot do that, my sketch of the future must be incomplete.
I can, however, ask the Committee to consider one essential question which requires no change in the law, but does require a very substantial change in our present methods of educational organisation. If the technical colleges are the keystone of one of the two arches on which must be based not only our whole educational structure, but the whole future prosperity of our commerce and our industry, as well as of the professions and public services of the nation, what must be the character, position and status of institutions so important? They cannot continue merely as municipal institutions provided primarily for the assistance of the industries carried on, and the benefit of the young men and young women residing within the municipal boundaries. Already, of course, these institutions have a wider range than this, but access to them is too often hindered by imperfect co-operation between local authorities, systems of differential fees, and the like. Moreover, great technical colleges in one municipality have no recognised position or function in relation to smaller or less advanced technical schools in other parts of the same industrial area, which ought
to act as their feeders. They are, therefore, unable to make their influence felt throughout the schools of such an area in the way that university influence makes itself felt throughout the secondary school system.
We need to advance in, this matter along three main lines of reform. We should have an accepted type of arrangement between all local authorities in a given industrial area ensuring easy access to the central institution for all students wherever they may reside; we must aim at co-operation between all the central institutions in a given industrial area both among themselves and with the industries of that area on such lines as have already been worked out in the County of Yorkshire; and, finally, and most important, we must recognise the central technical institution as something more than a municipal school, as, in fact, a college with a very real academic status, providing a wide range of studies and exercising a powerful influence on schools of a junior grade in the same industrial area. It is not often, in spite of a Scottish upbringing and a Scottish coadjutress, that I point to Scotland as an example in educational matters, but the example of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Art Colleges as real centres of talent from all parts of Scotland may well serve as a corrective to the provincialism of some parts of England, and even of Wales.
If it were possible I should like to find a new name. Here are institutions offering first-class teaching not only in industrial technology but also in various branches of science, in modern languages, in geography, in economics and in art, training men to supply the needs and elevate the tastes of their fellows, and very often, as in the case of a great institution like the Regent Street Polytechnic, providing instruction in a whole range of comparatively academic subjects. To call these great institutions with this range of teaching, "Technical Institutions," is clearly inadequate; and to call them, as the Board in despair has attempted to call them, "Institutions of Further Education" is distressingly vague. But more absurd still is to describe these institutions, as many people still do, as being merely vocational.
Last autumn in an address to the Institute of Adult Education, I ventured to urge that the work of adult classes should be much more closely associated with the local technical colleges and should, indeed, form an academic part of the colleges themselves. Some of my friends criticised this view very strongly on the ground that the specialisation of the technical college would contaminate the minds of those students engaged in disinterested studies. Frankly, that seems to me to be nonsense. The characteristic of a technical college is simply that it provides higher education above the secondary stage for those who are already at work in the world. Its function is to train the mind of such students just as fully as the University has to train the mind of the student who has not yet begun work; and there is just as much danger of specialisation in University work as in the work of a technical college. I must be careful in talking about universities, but the influence of specialisation in University degree work, carried down as it is to the secondary school through the medium of college scholarship examinations and credits given by Universities for successes in the higher certificate examinations, is threatening the liberal character of our secondary education in a far more dangerous way than any influence which proceeds, or is likely to proceed, from the technical college.
Let me go one step further along the same line of thought; and this goes near the root of our real educational problem. Any careful observer must be struck by the greater academic independence of the secondary school as compared with other parts of our educational system. The secondary school has inherited the same tradition of freedom as the universities. The elementary school, on the other hand, towards which local authorities have more precise duties, imposed by statute and defined by regulation, has always been subject to more detailed administrative control, and the tendency has perhaps been to apply the same kind of administrative technique to the Technical College and the College of Art. Fortunately, the practice of trusting the teacher and encouraging the individuality of the particular school has made great headway throughout our educational system; but let us realise clearly that we can never
succeed in the policy to which we have set our hands, of providing higher education for all children, unless we give to the technical college and to the new types of senior school which are to give this higher education, a teaching freedom similar to that of the University and the secondary school and a real responsibility in all matters of curriculum and teaching method. It may be that it is from this standpoint that we can most hopefully approach a solution of the difficulties of what is known as the dual system.

Mr. RENNIE SMITH: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us a little more about what he calls "teaching freedom?"

Lord E. PERCY: I have indicated the conception in my mind. I am comparing the kind of responsibility and control over its own destinies that the headmaster and the governing body of a secondary school have compared with the comparatively closer control and dictation which generally governs elementary schools. The difference, if you compare these two examples, is obvious. I think an essential of the new higher education must be that that type of academic freedom is realised to a greater and greater extent in the new class of school. It is perhaps from this angle that we can most hopefully approach a solution of the difficulties arising out of what is known as the dual system. A dual system in the sense of an administrative dyarchy must always be inconvenient and in some respects inefficient, but that has never been the aim of any section of opinion in this country. On the other hand, a multiple system such as we have in effect in our secondary education, based on the teaching freedom of schools large enough and strong enough to develop a corporate individuality of their own and to bear a corresponding measure of responsibility, is our traditional conception of education in this country and is the only one in which teacher, parent and administrator can each make his proper contribution to the education of the child.
I have sketched, so far as the rules of debate allow, the policy to which I believe, not merely the present Government but the country is committed—the realisation for the first time in our history
of a complete and balanced scheme of education in which every phase of education, primary, secondary, technical and university, will be given its proper place in one coherent structure. To complete that balanced scheme, we must give a more natural and normal place in the structure to two types of school which have hitherto stood rather outside even our elementary school system—the special school and the nursery school. As regards the special school, the recent Report of the Committee appointed by Sir George Newman has indicated certain defects in our methods of dealing with mentally deficient children. I have always felt these defects very strongly. I have been somewhat criticised for waiting for this Report before deciding my policy in regard to schools for mental defectives, but I believe the Committee's work will enable us to make a more comprehensive and more varied provision for the needs of such children within our general school system than has been possible on the basis of a procedure of medical certification, which has tended to divide retarded children into two fixed and somewhat artificial categories.
The nursery school presents a very different problem, but it is also a subject on which we all need to clarify our views by thorough investigation. I frankly admit that, among all the other preoccupations which I have outlined this afternoon, I have left this problem in the stage at which I found it, the stage of isolated experiments. Those experiments have not been unfruitful. They have, for instance, led the Board to modify its views on certain points such as the size of nursery schools, but we cannot be content either with our present rate of progress or with any of the proposals which have been recently put forward on this subject, which seem to me to amount to little more than a multiplication of isolated experiments. The time has come when this, our one remaining administrative problem, should be brought into the focus of a settled policy, and, as recently announced in another place, we propose to conduct a comprehensive inquiry with this object.
This is a great programme, and one of the conditions of its success is that all those concerned in the work of education should be able to devote their minds to
it without any of those conflicts and uncertainties which disturbed our scholastic peace up to four years ago. It is clear that, as our new scheme of education is more fully worked out, we must endeavour to translate the existing agreements between local authorities and teachers into terms of a permanent settlement which will be in harmony with the new conditions. But it is no less clear that the problems involved in such a settlement must be thoroughly and patiently explored, without haste and free from an atmosphere of bargaining. For this reason while I cannot interfere with the discretion of the local authorities and the teaching profession, I trust, and I am entitled to express the hope, that this full exploration will be carried out before any notice is given by either side to terminate the existing Burnham Agreement. I have indicated in the early part of my speech that I realise the importance of these outstanding problems. I have views upon them. I hope to assist in the solution. But for the reasons I have just given both teachers and local authorities will obviously expect me to abstain from expressing my views at this moment.
Finally, it may be asked, "Here is a comprehensive programme; has it got the finance behind it necessary for its execution?" I answer, "Yes." As we know, it is not an extravagant programme. Therefore it is not intended to be satisfactory to the apostles and disciples of unlimited expenditure. It is really a work of consolidation, economical in the truest sense, and it has behind it, I believe, the convinced support of the industries and commerce of the country, with whom we have established closer relations in educational matters than ever before, including the representatives of the workers. I do not wish, therefore, to weary the Committee with details about finance, but I will give them one figure which, I think, is the true test of the magnitude of the effort and of the progress that we are making at this stage. The test of a re-organisation of this kind is the capital expenditure that you invest upon it, and everything else, staffing, scholarships and so on expand as a result of your capital expenditure.
The capital expenditure during the last four years has certainly not been stinted. The building plans approved in the four
years since the issue of Circular 1350 involve an expenditure of £25,250,000, as against £12,250,000 in the preceding five years. Moreover every year, except the abnormal year of 1926–27, has constituted a new record. The growth of capital expenditure on building has steadily increased year by year until last year alone the plans approved rose to the unprecedented figure of nearly £7,000,000. I think that the only real doubt about finance which still troubles the mind of some of those interested in education relates to the effect of the various rating reforms carried out by the present Government. This doubt I think I can completely allay. It is true that this year our grants to local authorities are reduced by the effect of the increased assessments under the Rating and Valuation Act of 1925 under the Fisher formula. But my information is that this reduction has been long foreseen and discounted by local education authorities, and that little if any disturbance will result from it, in the performance of our work during this year.

Mr. COVE: May I put a question on that subject? Am I not right in saying that, as a result of the Rating and Valuation Act of 1925, the sum of £750,000 has been thrown exclusively on the rates, and that that sum would otherwise have been paid out of the national Exchequer? Is it not a fact, according to the Minister's own memorandum, that £750,000 this year has been thrown directly on the rates?

Lord E. PERCY: I cannot remember the precise figures at this moment. I will ask my hon. Friend to give the figures when she replies.

Mr. BROAD: Is it not the fact that that has been thrown particularly on the necessitous school areas?

Lord E. PERCY: No. Those are the facts and they automatically come from the operation of the Fisher formula which local authorities have always desired to keep unaltered.

Mr. COVE: Increased assessment.

Lord E. PERCY: The hon. Member can use any arguments he likes, whether accurate or not.

Mr. COVE: It is accurate enough, for it is in your own memorandum.

Lord E. PERCY: What I have said is as far as the Rating and Valuation Act of 1925 is concerned. As to the effect of de-rating, it is clear that the Local Government Act must greatly benefit the education of the great majority of children in the country. Of the 144 counties and county boroughs 115, according to the provisional estimates, will receive a substantial extra grant, over and above the loss resulting from de-rating, on their services as a whole, including their education service, and this extra grant will not be related in any way to their expenditure in the standard year. The remaining 29 counties and county boroughs will receive a grant related to their expenditure in the standard year, but even so it will exceed their loss on de-rating over all their services by one shilling per head of population. Consequently, all the great local education authorities will be able to spend extra money, and many of them large sums of extra money, on education without touching the rates at all. That extra expenditure will still attract the board's percentage grant. The accounting difficulty arising out of the allocation of the grant under the Local Government Act to the general county account instead of the education account, will be sufficiently met by a new form of rate demand note.
The only problem that remains is the effect of the Local Government Act on a certain number of Part III Authorities which may receive grants no more than sufficient to make up their loss in de-rating as measured by their expenditure in the standard year. That cannot produce any adverse effect on educational progress before the year 1931, and I have undertaken before that time, when the exact facts are available about particular local authorities, to examine the whole position and to make such provision in the Education Grant Regulations as may be necessary to enable those authorities to carry on their work in a proper manner.
In conclusion, may I say one word about the temper in which the country should approach the great task of educational architecture to which we have set our hands? To-day we have peace in the educational world as we never had it before, and our first aim must be to "seek peace and ensue it." It is in some respects more difficult to do that in a period of movement and reform than in a period of
quiescence. But peace and reform are not incompatible on one condition, that the reformer should remember that in dealing with human beings, and especially and above all in dealing with children, salvation is not to be found along any one path or in any one system. It is usually true of any dispute about policy, and especially about educational policy, that the disputants are very often right in what they affirm and nearly always wrong in what they deny. The great danger in education is the assertion of our personal dislikes. One man dislikes the Cowper-Temple teaching, another dislikes Church Schools; a third is shocked by Boy Scouts and Cadet Corps, or even by physical exercises or Air Force examinations; a fourth thinks it unnecessary that children should be taught to draw; and a fifth distrusts technical education. It is these dislikes that have weakened our education system in the past. There is no form of educational effort, there is no type of school that we can afford to dispense with in working out our reforms. Our educational range should be as varied as the needs of the children and as wide as the wishes of the parents. It must be national, not as confining all education within one system of public control, but as embracing all the intellectual and religious life and all the teaching skill of our people.

Mr. HARRIS: We have listened to a very charming speech, which would have been very appropriate as a discourse at a P.S.A. In fact I think the Minister could safely repeat the greater part or his speech without giving offence to any political party or any educational theory. Perhaps he is conscious that this is his swan song. At any rate quite unlike most of his previous speeches on these occasions, nearly everything which he has said has been non-controversial. When I heard that the Minister would exercise his right to speak first, I assumed that he was going to put forward a great forward policy anticipated in the Drury Lane speech of his leader. One would need a great deal of imagination to describe the Noble Lord's speech as embodying a forward policy. I make no apology for my party having asked for a day to discuss the Education Estimates. On the contrary, I am rather surprised that my hon. Friends of the Labour
party have not asked for a day, especially when I remember that for every day that we get they get more than three.
There are no fewer than 6,000,000 children under the care, more or less, of the Board of Education, and the bulk of those children are conscripts and are compelled to go to elementary schools. If you add to that total the large army of teachers, and the fact that the Board finds something like £40,500,000 a year, there is every reason to ask the Committee at least once a year to review the position. The right hon. Gentleman passed over very lightly some of the shifting of the burden that has happened owing to the action of the Government under the Rating and Valuation Act. It may have been accidental and may have come as a surprise to the right hon. Gentleman, but as a Member of the Cabinet he ought to have known the inevitable result of that policy. Considering the time spent by the Government in prancing about the country as the friends and protection of the ratepayers, in devising machinery to carry on local government without any extra expenditure, it is a curious comment on the Memorandum which has been presented with these Estimates. That Memorandum shows decrease in grants for elementary education of nearly £500,000, as a result of the anticipated increase of £256,000 due to the increased expenditure of local authorities, and a net decrease of £750,000 due to the increased produce of a 7d. rate, which operates as a grant-producing factor for elementary education, and which is the result of the increased assessment on 1st April, 1929, expected under the Bating and Valuation Act of 1925.
That is a very strange message to send to the local authorities with their heavy burdens, and it is certainly not a stimulus to a forward policy, because, as the Noble Lord knows, the local authorities are in direct contact with the people who find the money and one of the embarassments of education has been the large amount of money which has to be found out of the local rates. If the Noble Lord is sanguine as to the good effect on education of the de-rating Measure, I am not. I cannot overlook the fact that it narrows the area from which rates are gathered, and when it is
necessary to make educational advance and increase expenditure, the ratepayers will find that the produce of a penny rate has been decreased by the de-rating Measure. When we remember as well the results of the Valuation Act, it will be seen that the future of the local authorities as regards finance is not a happy one. I am sorry that the Noble Lord dismissed the matter so lightly, but perhaps he was wise to keep it to the end of his speech.
On the subject of nursery schools, I was interested to hear the Noble Lord's reference to a statement made in another place. I always thought that the words "another place" meant the upper House, but we have now a new definition of the phrase and apparently it refers also to broadcasting. The Prime Minister in his speech envisaged a great advance in the provision for children under school age. We know now what that great advance is to be. It is to be a "comprehensive inquiry." That is the great message of the Prime Minister to the mothers of of England on this matter, and the immediate generation of children under school age are not likely to gain any great advantage from it. We have had five years of the Noble Lord's rule at the Board of Education, and we have only 26 recognised nursery schools with 1,300 children, 11 of these schools being provided by local education authorities while 15 have been voluntarily provided—although there are something like 1,750,000 children coming within the age category suitable for nursery schools. That is not work of which to be proud. It is not a great achievement. During the past year only one new school has been opened and two have been started. Now we are to have an inquiry. With great respect to the Noble Lord—whose leader claims that his policy is one of performance and not of promise—there is already plenty of information available on this matter, owing largely to the very interesting experiment made by Miss Margaret McMillan. The Noble Lord can see for himself as a result of those experiments the most interesting work in connection with nursing schools to be seen anywhere in the world brought far beyond the experimental stage. We have the reports of his own chief medical officer, who, I suppose can be described as the President's technical adviser. In his report for 1926, the medical officer said:
After admission to a nursery school it is found that children show improvement in quicker and lighter movements, they become more observant and less lethargic, for the result of overcrowded homes leads to the activities natural to childhood becoming cramped and depressed with results injurious to bodily and mental growth.
The medical officer of the Board is perfectly satisfied about the necessity for nursery schools, and is quite dogmatic about the matter. He says:
In the case of the slum child the nursery school secures a new order of child life which is almost magical in its rapid growth, showing a triumph over the handicap of home environment and circumstances.

Lord E. PERCY: Surely the hon. Member realises that Sir George Newman in the same report refers to the advantages of a new and different type of institution.

Mr. HARRIS: Yes, but he refers particularly to the Margaret McMillan school, and in the next report there is a similarly strong recommendation. I say that this is an urgent matter. I agree that when the bulk of the population have been re-housed when the slums have been cleared away the need for nursery schools will not be so urgent, but it is vital at the present time. While the Noble Lord has been sleeping comfortably at the Board of Education, nursery schools have been made almost universal in Germany. In almost every town in Germany you find a pleasant house with a garden provided for the purposes of a nursery school. I have never advocated elaborate buildings for this purpose. Generally speaking, a nice house with a garden will serve the purpose, and I think it unfortunate that the great call to the nation from Drury Lane is to end up, as far as this matter is concerned, with having another inquiry.
While I am referring to the medical officer, I may also mention the subject of dental treatment. We have some remarkable statements on this point in the Annual Report for 1928. Incidentally, I would like to congratulate the Noble Lord on bringing out the Report at such an early stage. That is one thing in which he has shown himself in advance of his predecessors and in bringing out the Report so much earlier he has greatly convenienced the members of the Committee. In that Report the remarkable statement is made by the medical officer
that more than half the children are not inspected; that of those inspected 67 per cent. are found to need treatment, and of the 67 per cent. found to need treatment, 42 per cent. did not get it. In 18 areas no provision at all had been made for either inspection or treatment. I do not know if the Noble Lord desires to seek popularity among the children. No doubt the children themselves are not anxious to go into the dentist's chair, and a Minister who wishes to deal with this matter efficiently and well, would, no doubt, make himself extremely unpopular, but I think we have a cause for quarrel with the Noble Lord in this matter, because, if he is going to complete his medical system, one of the most urgent necessities is to deal with the question of dental treatment.
The Noble Lord was very self-satisfied about the work done in reducing the size of classes. Some progress has been made in the last few years—progress has been made during the last 20 years—but it is very slow and tedious and no one could describe it as "setting the Thames on fire." There are still over 16,000 classes with more than 50 children. In the Report, the Noble Lord or his officials put forward some sound and reasonable excuses such as the development of the new housing areas and the shifting of population. I agree that these factors have upset the calculations of some local authorities especially in Essex, but while that excuse is put forward the Noble Lord's inspectors are showing unseemly haste in closing down old schools in areas where the population has gone down. Where the population has gone down and where it can be argued at all that the actual requirements of the Board are being exceeded, an inspector rushes in and requires the closing of a school. Most of these reductions occur in over-crowded areas because the migration is from the centres of the cities to the outskirts. It is in the over-crowded areas that schools are being closed. In Brussels they have a similar problem but there, where the population has gone down, they are taking the opportunity to reduce the size of the classes to 25. That will possibly startle the Noble Lady the Parliamentary Secretary. In Belgium they argue, and, I think, argue rightly, that in the over-crowded areas the need for small classes is greater than it is in the
nice garden suburbs. Accordingly they are giving these poor children the advantages of better personal attention and more space in the schools.
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There is also the question of the size of class-rooms. The Noble Lord spoke of building up a great national system of education. A great national system of education, one assumes, means equal opportunities for all children. It means that every child should enjoy the advantages of proper surroundings, proper buildings, and proper personal attention. All that is now required by the Board in regard to class room accommodation is 12 square feet per child, while in secondary schools the minimum laid down is 16 square feet per child. I may be peculiar in my view, but I think that the child in the council school requires more space than the child in the secondary school, because the bulk of the children in secondary schools come from good homes, while a large percentage of the children in the elementary schools come from over-crowded rooms where they have insufficient space to sleep and where the conditions are bad. Twelve feet have been recognised universally as not enough space for a child in an ordinary public school. Actually, it is less than the space required by France, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, even Russia and Italy—two countries at opposite poles—Norway, Sweden, and, needless to say, the United States. If the Noble Lord wants to stand out as the founder of a great national school of education, he will have to raise the standard of his requirements for space.
The Noble Lord took great credit—and as I rather gathered from the speech at Drury Lane the Prime Minister did too—for the Burnham Report. He seems to have forgotten that the Minister who inspired and appointed the Burnham Committee was Mr. Fisher, and, though he himself was not able to carry out the Report, the credit of being the author and inspirer of it, and all that it meant, must necessarily go to Mr. Fisher. The Noble Lord also dismissed rather summarily the question of down-grading. The word may be Greek to those who have not followed educational administration very closely, but the Noble Lord knows that it is a very burning and urgent question, because it is upsetting
thousands of people throughout the country and causing an immense amount of unrest. It is, not a new problem. It dates back to 1918. It was referred to by the Departmental Committee on Teachers' Salaries, and the first Burnham Report recommended that if, owing to causes beyond the control of the head teacher, the average attendance fell, the teacher should not be prejudiced as regards grade, salary, increments, or maximum, but the Board have now decided that, if there is a fall due to removal or shrinkage of population, fluctuations in the birth rate or scholars going to secondary schools, the headmaster loses his grade and his salary and superannuation rights as well. I know how serious that it, because I have had cases given me. I have one particularly in mind of a very vigorous headmaster full of enthusiasm and ambitious to get his boys to central schools by means of scholarships. He has been so successful that he has lost his grade and has had his salary reduced. That sort of thing cannot be defended. It is no use saying that in a year or two there will be an inquiry. Meanwhile the teachers are out of pocket, and it is causing a great feeling of unrest and discontent.
That leads me to the whole problem of reorganisation. "Reorganisation" is a great word. If it is going to be a real reconstruction of education to meet the needs of the twentieth century, we are all in favour of it. Everyone accepts the Report of the Consultative Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir Henry Hadow, a great epoch-making report. But reorganisation may be only reshuffling, and we have to be very careful not to be content with a mere readjustment of the machinery of education. I have seen the new development of children at work, and undoubtedly the classification as the result of the separation of the younger from the older ones, and especially of the older children who are backward from having to associate with those very much younger, is an entirely good thing, and it is a policy which has been accepted generally. But, if the spirit of the Hadow Report is really to operate, we much not be content with a mere transfer of children from one building to another. Something more substantial is needed. We want to breathe into the new modern school the
spirit of the secondary school, not necessarily the syllabus but the atmosphere, both as regards the building, the staffing and the whole spirit of the place, For instance, a secondary school always has a library. Every child has his or her book to take home. In the new modern school the spirit of the old Board school still remains. The children are not allowed to take books home, and there is no school library. I noticed in a special report which appeared in the Board's Report for 1928 it says "the expenditure on books is seriously insufficient." In the same way with the provision of plant and equipment. A change from one building to another is not going to bring about the very fine ideals put forward by the Noble Lord, which we all accept. Something more is needed—a new atmosphere entirely, proper lecture rooms for science and the necessary scientific equipment for experiment and instruction. I went the other day to a very nice school with a proper science room, but with no equipment and the room, therefore, was not used for its purpose.
What the Noble Lord has to aim at when he talks about a national system is to bring about the "common school" which exists in America, where children of every class can go, and where the parent is satisfied to send his child. There is still class consciousness in education here. This country is the last refuge of mediaevalism in education. In France, in the ordinary school, you find the son of a chauffeur sitting alongside the son of his employer. If that is possible you have to level up the standard of the buildings and reduce overcrowding in the classes. When I was in Hanover a year or two ago I saw a lot of work being done. I said: "Have you not a party in municipal administration which opposes all this expenditure as extravagant?" The answer was, "No, on the contrary the well-to-do classes, the business people are keener than anyone in improving their buildings." I said, "That is entirely contrary to the spirit in our towns, where the west-end is always suspicious as to an increase in the Education rate." My informant told me that in their schools the banker's son sits alongside the son of the labourer. I do not say for a moment that we should force every school into one groove. I am
all for variety, but the State schools should be of as high a standard as those of the privileged few.
The noble Lord also dismissed the secondary schools in a very few words. He seemed to be perfectly satisfied with the progress that is being made. Of course, there has been progress, but it is very slow. At the rate we are going it will be many years before we reach the Government's own comparatively low standard. The standard laid down as desirable by the Board is 20 secondary school places per thousand of population. I find that the number on the average is only 9.3 for England and, for Wales, 12.5. There is a very interesting figure in the Board's own Report which shows that 5 per cent. of the children are under the proper age—between 10 and 11—who ought not to be in secondary schools at all. Meanwhile there are thousands of children whose parents would like them to get scholarships but, owing to the high standard, they cannot get them into the secondary schools. It is unfortunate that the age should be stereotyped at 11. There are many intelligent children who develop late in life. I remember being at a great public school where the ex-President of the Board of Education, the right hon. Member for Central Newcastle (Sir C. Trevelyan), was a student, and where also was the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. I can picture him now, very much like he is to-day—all virility, very talkative, ready to make speeches to small boys in tuck-shops whenever the opportunity arose. But when it came to scholastic attainments he himself said—I think he was wrong—that he was longer the bottom boy in a bottom class than any boy at any time in the history of the school. His was a case of latent development. If he had been a poor man's child born, say, at Bethnal Green, or in a mining village, his education would have stopped, because at 11 he would never have won a scholarship. Whatever we may think of his political activities, we all recognise his fine literary style. We accept him as one of the best writers of his age. This has been possible because he has completed his education. He was able, with the aid of a crammer, to go to Sandhurst, where he jumped ahead and won the top prize, the sword of honour, because of his intellectual attainments. I hope the Noble Lord will not too closely adhere to the age of 11.

Lord E. PERCY: Does not the London County Council give scholarships at 13?

Mr. HARRIS: Yes, but they are rare and they are difficult to get, because the general policy of the Board and of local authorities is as I have said.
When we come to technical education, we had a remarkable speech. I do not quarrel with any of the Noble Lord's words. He is full of good thoughts, but there, again, it is not performance but promise of abstract principles. While the Noble Lord has been holding inquiries other countries have been acting. I understand his policy is not relief works but a revival of trade. I paid a visit to Germany two years ago. I took the trouble to visit their technical schools and their continuation schools. While we are holding elaborate inquiries, the whole machinery of technical education in Germany has been reorganised. There is not a trade, industry or craft that has not got its complete machinery for dealing with the technical training of the child. I visited Hanover, Leipzig and Nuremberg. They have altered the system since the War, but before the War they had compulsory continuation schools outside the employers' time. Now, following the precedent of Mr. Fisher's Act, they have made continuation compulsory in the employers' time, and the classes must be held in the daytime. They are not classes, however, of the kind that we have here, ill-equipped and in bad buildings. I found that there were new buildings going up; I found the most up-to-date machines, the most up-to-date appliances, being installed. I went into one building where they were scrapping all the old machinery—it was a school for teaching foundry workers—and putting in brand new machines, which were so up-to-date that they had not even been introduced into the neighbouring factories. When I challenged that activity and asked how they could find the money, I was told, "There is the Dawes plan. We are a debtor nation, and in the position of having to make contributions to all the other countries in the world, and the only way in which we can do this is by training our craftsmen and making them into the most skilled workers in the world."
We think that technical education, not on a piecemeal scale, but on a large
scale, is absolutely essential. The right hon. Gentleman—I congratulate him—has appointed two Committees of Inquiry. I remember a Committee of Inquiry, presided over by the late Lord Emmott, that had two or three interviews with the right hon. Gentleman, and I remember his contemptuous reference to that Committee, which he described once as some friends of mine. I am proud to say they were friends of mine, not all Liberals, but, of course, there was the late Lord Emmott who was a distinguished Minister in a Liberal Government, and there was Sir Robert Blair, who, I am proud to say, is Chairman of the Education Advisory Committee which advises the Liberal party on educational subjects. They did not get much encouragement, but most Liberals are very persistent, and at last, at the eleventh hour, or in the fifth year of the Minister's presidency of the Board, he has now awakened to the necessity of the case, and we are to have an inquiry. There is really no necessity for inquiry, because the right hon. Gentleman has his inspectors going about the country all the time collecting information, and here are some of the Reports that they have sent in:
The school buildings, originally designed for a grammar school, have since 1911 been used for the technical school. The development of the latter necessitated the erection on adjoining land of temporary structures and the acquisition of a neighbouring factory. The buildings…have proved exceedingly inconvenient: the Principal has to carry on his administrative work in a room measuring about 10 feet square; there is no common room for the teaching staff, no room for the use of students, no rest room for the women staff and students; and the sanitary arrangements are very much below standard.
That is one Report. Here is another:
While the college possesses a considerable amount of valuable equipment, much of it is rendered almost entirely useless by the entirely inadequate room in which it is housed. The larger pieces of apparatus and machinery are crowded round the walls of a room which is used mainly as a classroom. The equipment for the practical study of electrical engineering is meagre, and the room in which the electrical machines are housed is a very small and dingy store in the basement.
Here is another:
The premises consist of portions of a large house which has on two occasions undergone some alterations; the only convenient part is a semi-permanent extension
in which engineering instruction is given. Dressmaking is carried out on woodwork benches, and plumbing is taught in a cellar. There is no staff room, no students' common room, no library, though there are many books.
There are dozens of other Reports from the right hon. Gentleman's own inspectors. He knows the facts and the necessities of the case, and we suggest that the country cannot wait, and that industry has the right to claim from the Board of Education the same advantages as are enjoyed by its German competitors.
I was very glad indeed to notice the Noble Lord's reference to art education. I have spoken about that on more than one occasion. We are lamentably behind in this country. We have just given Safeguarding to the lace industry, and anybody who knows anything at all about that industry knows that it is terribly handicapped by lack of art instruction. In Nottingham they have a lot of old-fashioned styles which they keep on repeating year after year for want of seeing anything better. Our art schools have become a by-word throughout Europe. That is common knowledge to the Government. I am very glad the Noble Lord referred to the cotton industry, for, after all, England still leads the cotton industry of the world, but nearly all our patterns come from Paris. The Balfour Committee on Industry and Trade pointed out the insufficiency of our art instruction, the fact that it is divorced from industry, and its unsuitability for its purpose. It is only the courage, imagination, and industry of our cotton printers that have enabled them to carry on at all. In the final Report of the Balfour Committee one very practical difficulty is pointed out. The Noble Lord was very indignant in referring to finance, and said that hon. Members on this side only got eager when the question of £ s. d. came in. Here is a case of £ s. d. The Balfour Report point out:
So far as we can see, the most effective, perhaps the only certain way to ensure that the members of the teaching staff shall keep abreast of modern developments in industrial science, art, and technique is that they should be encouraged, and if necessary required, as a condition of their employment, to devote sufficient time to scientific research or to the practice of the industry or craft.… In one reply, 'the construction of the Burnham scales' of
salary is stated to militate against the recruitment of staff possessing industrial experience. Finally, the London County Council definitely stated in its reply 'that the arrangements in force regarding superannuation and salary scales made official recognition of research impossible'. …
It is outside our scope to enter into the highly technical and complicated questions of scales of pay and conditions of pension for teachers. But whether the statements and opinions quoted above are well founded, or based on a misunderstanding, it appears to us highly desirable that the situation should be cleared up without delay, either by a modification, or by an authoritative interpretation, of the conditions of service and pension.
What has the right hon. Gentleman done? I suppose he has read that Report. It is true that it does not come within the definite scope of his Department. It comes perhaps under the Board of Trade, and I always find that the various Departments are very much divorced from each other, but here is an important matter which can be righted—

Lord E. PERCY: If the hon. Member will look at the Balfour Report, he will see that those statements are quoted mainly from the Report of the Emmott Committee, to which the hon. Member referred. When the Emmott Committee presented that Report, I told them I thought those remarks were mainly due to a misapprehension, and that I should be very glad, if the representatives of the teaching profession who were on that Committee thought there was really any serious foundation for those statements, if they would come to me and formulate proposals for a modification of the Regulations. Broadly speaking, the fact of the matter is that most of those statements by the Emmott Committee, while they do not entirely lack foundation, are very wide of the mark.

Mr. HARRIS: I doubt the right hon. Gentleman a little bit. I have great faith in the body of business men who signed this Report. They are all of them very capable men, including Sir William Beveridge, the economist, and unless they were satisfied, they would not take for gospel everything that Lord Emmott said, although he was a distinguished Liberal; and I have no doubt there is some substance in it. But my general attack on the right hon. Gentleman is not for his professions, or his principles, or his theories, or his ideas, but for his
activities. He is a passive Minister. He is too much of a passenger. He merely stands as an onlooker to see that the local authorities, in educational matters, do not go too fast and are not too extravagant. We want a Board of Education that is really a Board of Education, to give a real lead, to stimulate and prod on the local authorities, the slack local authorities, up to the high standard necessary for this country, if we are to have what the Noble Lord has professed to be in favour of, namely, a real national system of education, a system of education in the spirit of the Fisher Act, to bring us into line with other countries, and help this nation to get through the difficult problems of the post-War period.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: I associate myself with the observations of the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris), who has just sat down, when he says that we have listened this afternoon to a statement from the Noble Lord not so much of what the Government have done as to what the Government might, by accident, do if returned to office after the next election. I rather think the Noble Lord has enjoyed himself immensely this afternoon in his review of the activities which stand to his credit since he accepted office at the end of 1924. The Noble Lord feels that he has traversed a tremendous amount of territory, but he knows, in surveying that territory, which end of the telescope to put up to his eye. In order to estimate what the nature of the achievement of the Government has been since it assumed office, I might perhaps be permitted to quote, for the refreshment of the right hon. Gentleman's memory, a passage from the speech of the Prime Minister in the book entitled "Looking Ahead." That passage reads as follows:
The Unionist party is in favour of securing for every child effective and practical education which will develop individual character and will give to everyone a chance of making the best out of his or her talent, and of improving his or her position in life. With this view, the party would desire to see all schools conducted in healthy and well-equipped buildings by qualified and adequately remunerated teachers, and would maintain a close co-ordination between elementary, secondary, technical, and higher education.
At the end of the 54 months that have been occupied by the right hon. Gentleman
opposite, we have had another speech from the Prime Minister, in which we had, as it were, in succinct and summarised form, the speech of the Noble Lord which we have heard this afternoon. Indeed, if the Noble Lord will allow me to say so, I rather suspect that the summarised paragraph in the Prime Minister's speech must have been written by the Noble Lord himself, so singularly alike were some of the phrases in the two addresses. I beg leave at the outset to associate myself wholly and cordially with the well-merited tribute which the Noble Lord paid to the distinguished civil servant who has left the Board in the course of the last 12 months. I remember extremely well the happy time that I spent at the Board in association with Sir Hugh Orange, as well as others, and I am happy to pay tribute to the fact that he co-operated with us cordially, and placed at our disposal the very fullest measure of his unrivalled abilities.
I, too, would like to traverse something of the same ground that the Noble Lord has traversed, only in the opposite direction. He made reference to the provision of nursery schools. Repentance is always welcome, even though it come at the 59th minute of the 11th hour, and I am glad to see the Noble Lord this afternoon as a sort of penitent sinner confessing that he has delayed the operation of this proposal quite wrongly in previous years. I gather from the Noble Lord's speech that the Conservative party is now wholly and completely convinced that nursery schools ought to take their proper and appropriate place in the education system of this country. I gather also that in order to carry conviction in that matter, it was necessary for the Prime Minister and his wife to see the wonderful work done by Miss McMillan in the Deptford area. If one can carry conviction to the eye rather than to the ear, it is good to have conviction anyhow. We who belong to the Labour party have long since expressed full-hearted approval in the proposal for the provision of nursery schools, especially in areas that suffer severely from overcrowding and like social evils. I, therefore, welcome the Noble Lord as a recruit to the ranks of those who believe in this proposal.
I turn to a discussion of the present position with regard to elementary
schools, and I recall to the Committee's attention and memory the phrase in the Prime Minister's pledge in 1924 concerning the staffing of schools, and, indeed, concerning the general proposition of the provision of schools. Before we left office in 1924 there was drafted a certain black list of schools that were in, immediate need of attention, and of other schools that were in less immediate need, but still were in need, of attention.

Lord E. PERCY: In urban areas.

Mr. JONES: Quite right. I gather from to-day's report that some 1,050 schools have already been attended to by the Board. These constitute some 35 per cent. of the schools which require attention. So far so good, and I cordially congratulate the Noble Lord upon that, but it means that something like 1,800 schools still require attention. To confess in these days that nearly 2,000 schools are in such a deplorable condition that they require to be placed upon a black list, is a matter of which most of us ought to be thoroughly ashamed. I hope that whatever Government may be in Office after the next election, this business of taking the unfit schools in hand will be speedily undertaken, so that we may bring our school buildings up to something like a decent standard of efficiency. Now I turn to the question of staffing, for after all, when we are dealing with the 4,900,000 children who are in our schools, it is obvious that we cannot get the very best out of the elementary system unless we are able to place at the disposal of these children a degree of staffing which will prevent overcrowding of the classes in the charge of these teachers. I am rather disturbed when I reflect that the number of what might fairly be called professionally unqualified teachers, in the sense of not having had any training college experience, the number of moderately qualified teachers, supplementary teachers and uncertificated teachers still engaged in the schools remains rather persistently round about the same figure.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Duchess of Atholl) indicated dissent.

Mr. JONES: I notice that the Noble Lady shakes her head. I have looked up the figures rather carefully, and if I am
wrong I shall be glad to be corrected. I am taking the post-War figures, but I will give a pre-War figure as a basis of comparison. The contrast between pre-War years and post-War years is a real contrast, and signifies a real advance. In 1913–14, the uncertificated teachers and supplementary teachers numbered 54,774. In 1922–23, there were 32,000 uncertificated and 11,000 supplementary. I am giving round figures. In 1923–24 there were 32,000 uncertificated and 10,000 supplementary; in 1924–25, 32,000 uncertificated and 8,000 supplementary. I have not the figure for 1925–26, because, curiously enough, the table is not given in exactly the same form in the two succeeding copies of the Board's Report. Then we come to 1926–27, and mark the figure. There were 33,310 uncertificated teachers and 8,000-odd supplementary. In 1927–28, the numbers were 32,775 uncertificated and 8,303 supplementary. Whatever efforts the Noble Lord may have made to cope with this somewhat unfortunate state of affairs, he will agree with me that the figures remain somewhat persistently round about the same standard. He may have a quite adequate answer to that point, but I am stating the facts after a fairly minute and careful inquiry into the reports of the Board of Education. I make that point because the pledge was given in the Prime Minister's address in 1924, in a book called, "Looking Ahead," that these children should be placed in charge of qualified and adequately remunerated teachers.
Let me turn to another side of the same problem, namely that of the facilities offorded to children to enable them to make the best of the education afforded them. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green dealt with it, and he rightly said that there are in the elementary schools of this country 16,500 classes of over 50 children. Everyone acquainted with the treatment and the instruction of children, and the chances that any teacher has for really educating, apart from lecturing or talking at 50 children, knows that it is literally impossible to educate under these conditions especially as in many schools there is no sort of partition between one class and another, and teachers very frequently have to talk against one another in the hope that their children may by some chance hear what they are saying. If
we examine the matter more closely, we find some appalling conditions. Take the figure of 40 children per class. That was the figure which the Minister of Education in 1924 laid down as his immediate ideal—

Duchess of ATHOLL: In what type of school?

Mr. JONES: In elementary schools.

Duchess of ATHOLL: In all classes of the elementary schools?

Mr. JONES: Does the Noble Lady ask me whether I implied 40 per class for all schools?

Duchess of ATHOLL: I want to ask the hon. Gentleman what regulation was issued by the Minister of Education in 1924 limiting the number of children per class to 40?

Mr. JONES: The Noble Lady has gone too far. I did not use the word "regulation." What I said was that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education in 1924 indicated that the number 40 was his ideal. I did not suggest that there was a regulation issued at all, and if I gave that impression I am sorry. It was the ideal towards which he wished to direct the attention of the authorities at that time. Most of us will agree that 40 is a figure beyond which no teacher could really do any efficient work in real education. There are 62,288 classes in the schools of more than 40 children. Clearly that is a hopeless position and an impossible proposition from the strictly educational point of view. Of these 62,000 classes, over 10,000 are in charge of unqualified teachers; that is to say, one-sixth of the heaviest classes are in charge of unqualified teachers. Really, that is an impossible position, and it ought not to be tolerated one minute beyond what we must allow by force of circumstances I suggest, therefore, that the pledge that the Prime Minister laid down in his pronouncement in the pre-1924 election period has not in fact been fulfilled. I therefore accuse the Noble Lord of having failed during his administration to carry out the pledge which the Government gave to the country in regard to educational development.
I turn now from elementary to secondary education. We were told that
secondary and university courses were to be brought within the reach of every child in an elementary school who might be desirous and capable of taking advantage of them. If the Committee care to look at the report for this year they will find that where fees are charged in secondary schools those fees are, very frequently, of an exorbitant character, from the point of view of poor homes. On page 138 it is shown that the number of schools charging more than 3 but not over 6 guineas is 69 in England and 98 in Wales; over 6 but not over 9 guineas, 246 in England, 22 in Wales; over 9 but not over 12 guineas, 527 in England and 3 in Wales. Doubtless these are very good schools, well equipped in every way, but the very high fees charged are an impassable barrier against a certain type of pupil, and while these financial barriers remain it really is impossible for anyone to argue that there is a broad highway along which all children, rich and poor, can travel without let or hindrance.

Sir MARTIN CONWAY: Are there not free places in those schools?

Mr. JONES: Of course, there are free places; but every school has only a certain amount of accommodation, and if a school depends more upon fees than upon Board of Education grants—and there are schools of that sort—naturally it will reserve more places for fee-paying pupils than for non-fee-paying pupils, and in many of these schools the number of non-fee-paying pupils is very limited. I am not making an attack upon the efficiency of these schools; all I am asking is that the number of free places shall be infinitely larger than it is. When that is the case we shall have carried out more completely the promise adumbrated by the Prime Minister in his 1924 pledge. Looking at page 155 of the report to which I have referred it will be found that the number of children who, having passed from the elementary schools to the secondary schools, have since gone on from there to the universities is still very limited. I am not accusing the Noble Lord on account of his failure to do all this in the course of his administration, but I am saying that it is foolish for him to argue that he has fully discharged the pledge which was given by his political leader the Prime Minister in
1924, and still more foolish for the Prime Minister to argue, as he did in his speech at Drury Lane Theatre last week, that the Government have carried out their pledge, in view of the fact that so many children are still excluded from the secondary schools and so many more excluded from the universities. [Interruption.] The Noble Lady seems to inquire to what I am referring. I will enlighten her if she does not mind paying attention to me for a moment. I will quote this:
There is another record which, I think, will bear the most intense scrutiny"—
That scrutiny I am trying to apply to it now—
and that is our educational record, which bears comparison with that of any previous party in the history of the country. We have more than fulfilled every pledge that we have made.
More than fulfilled!

Duchess of ATHOLL: Will the hon. Member kindly read a little further? The Prime Minister repeats the pledges made four years ago, which makes it quite clear, I think, that he means it to be understood that while we have been working steadily towards the fulfilment of the pledges, we do not claim to have come to the end of every one of them.

Mr. JONES: I will do that if the Noble Lady wants me to do it.
We have more than fulfilled every pledge we have made. We are only halfway through the work of reform to which our Minister of Education and the Government have set their hands, but by what we have done we have proved our will to go further.

Lord E. PERCY: Hear, hear!

Mr. JONES: Will the Noble Lord follow my argument for a moment? How many extra places has he been able to provide per year in the secondary schools? Has he provided 5,000 in the 54 months? I think the Noble Lord will find that he has allowed some 10 new secondary schools to be built.

Lord E. PERCY indicated dissent.

Mr. JONES: This report gives it somewhere.

Duchess of ATHOLL: May I correct the hon. Member? The number of new secondary school places—not secondary schools—provided during 4½ years is not 5,000 but 32,000, an increase of 10 per
cent., and there has been an increase in free places in those schools of not less than 22 per cent. Therefore, it is obvious that not only has there been a much larger increase in the number of places than the hon. Member realised, but also that the number and the proportion of free places has been steadily increasing.

Mr. JONES: I have now got the figures to which I was referring. They are given in table 32, page 136. I find that I was wrong in saying the number was 5,000. The total number of secondary school pupils in England in 1926–27 was 337,421, and in 1927–28, 342,957, an increase of 5,536. That is the figure I had in my mind—the increase in that one year. In that year 10 new schools were opened.

Lord E. PERCY: That is in one year.

Mr. JONES: Suppose there is an average of 300 pupils per school; that makes 3,000 pupils for those 10 schools. Take the 3,000 from the 5,536 and you have got some 2,500 left to be distributed over—how many educational authorities areas? There are 317 or 318. Divide the 2,500 by the 318 areas and how many extra places on the average have you provided all over the country? I am not arguing against it, nor am I deploring it, all I am saying to the Noble Lord is that it is an extravagance for him and his friends to argue that in the course of their administration they have fulfilled, even to a decent degree, the pledge which the Prime Minister gave in 1924.

Sir WILLIAM PERRING: Does the hon. Member accept the Noble Lady's figures? He is arguing against them.

Mr. JONES: If the hon. Member had paid attention to me, he would know that I withdrew the remark I made with reference to the 5,000.

Sir W. PERRING: But the hon. Member is continuing the argument.

Mr. JONES: Having said this about secondary schools, let me add a word in regard to technical schools. I am extremely sorry to hear what the Noble Lord said concerning the development of technical education. As I said last year, I am absolutely convinced that if our country is to hold her own in the great fight for commercial priority among the nations of the world she must develop her technical education to an infinitely
greater degree. Some two years ago I had the pleasure and privilege of Visiting America. Indeed, I have been there twice recently, and on each occasion this idea has been impressed upon me: Whatever merits or demerits may attach to the American system of education—and there are many demerits as well as merits—it is quite certain that Americans appreciate to a considerable degree, and much more than we do, the necessity for the development of technical education.
6.0 p.m.
I was very glad to hear the Noble Lord say that the Board are taking an enlightened and a sustained interest in the question of industrial art, because it may very well be that in the coming years races which we have regarded as being more laggard than ourselves may come to compete with us in coarser types of manufacture, but so long as we are able to equip our students with an artistic education and to apply that artistic training to industrial work, our nation will be able to retain that leadership which we desire her to retain. I am prepared to grant credit to anyone for anything that has been attempted on behalf of education, and I am glad to observe that the Board have recently made a substantial advance in their provision for the development of technical education. So far, I am at one with those in charge of the administration of education, but looking back over the four years in which our friends "the enemy" have been in charge, I am bound to say that I cannot share with the Noble Lord the self-satisfaction which he seems to enjoy so thoroughly. I am appalled by the measure of what is yet to be accomplished, and I am abundantly convinced that in their 54 months of office the Government have not discharged their obligations to help forward the development of education in our land. More council schools are required. More efficient schools and smaller classes are badly wanted in many of our schools. In order to secure that desirable end I, for my part, earnestly hope that whatever Government may return to office after the next election they may have the abundant support of all so as to be able to discharge their educational responsibility to the nation.

Sir M. CONWAY: It is in the nature of things that these education
Debates should lack the actuality of ordinary human life. If any child of nature were to come into this Chamber this afternoon, fresh from contact with the men in the streets, to listen to an education Debate he would find an atmosphere of "lamentation and mourning and woe." That would not be the fault of the speakers in this House. We have been immensely interested by the statement of the Noble Lord, and I have admired the way in which he has been able to keep so closely in his mind all those details connected with institutions, schools, classes, organisations, and all the rest of it. At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th Century, when there was a great reaction against mediaeval benightedness, an educational revolution took place. At that time the foundation was laid for the literary and humanistic teaching which has lasted up to the present day as the only foundation of teaching. Recently, I read with interest the life of that great Italian educational pioneer, Vittorino da Feltse, and, as I read it, I could see in his impulse a germ of the education system which has existed down to the present day. There is a tradition which I find is held quite strongly on the benches opposite, which is that you must have a sort of humanistic teaching to every child up to as late an age as possible before vocational training is taken up. They consider that literary teaching is the necessary foundation of all good education. Such is not necessarily the case. Moreover, I have little sympathy with the abstract manner in which elementary subjects are taught in the schools.

HON. MEMBERS: No!

Mr. SHEPHERD: Has the hon. Member been in any of our schools within the last few years?

Sir M. CONWAY: Yes, I have, and I found there a totally different atmosphere from that which I find in this House. In the schools, you have the children and the teachers with problems to tackle, and most of the teachers are a very worthy set of people. The atmosphere of a school is a totally different question from that which we find in this House when Education is under discussion. Organisation and super-organisation
of education leaves me cold. I envisage not an educational system, but an actual teacher and an actual pupil. The other day we had a Debate on emigration, and I intervened for a few moments in order to suggest that one of the reasons why our people do not emigrate so readily as they did was the fault of our educational system. I suggested that an education in the country schools of a character suited to the localities was one which would be far more useful than the kind of stereotyped education which we are giving all over the country, suitable mainly for providing efficient clerks in city offices.
The hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Longbottom) said he never heard a more reactionary speech. I suppose he thinks that any education which is not literary is reactionary. The hon. Member for Halifax regarded my suggestion as reactionary simply, because I suggested that we should teach a kind of thing that would vitalise country life.
I will give a rough sketch of the kind of teaching that might be given. Of course, reading and writing are necessary as the first practical method of learning, because you must be able to read and write in order to learn from books. The children might then be taught arithmetic in the form of keeping the accounts relating to a small holding or any other small industry. Then I would teach the rudiments of geography by beginning with the geography of the parish and the immediate neighbourhood, but I would make my first unit the geography of the parish. I would treat history in the same way and I would make local history the foundation of such historical teaching as I was able to give. I would teach the children the rudiments of botany in connection with the growth of plants, wild weeds, the cultivation of crops, the nature of different seeds, and their different suitability for local agriculture. I would give the children rudimentary instruction in the chemistry of soils, manures, and so forth.

Mr. SHEPHERD: Is the hon. Member not aware that in 90 per cent. of the rural schools that is exactly what the children are being taught?

Sir M. CONWAY: I think not. I am aware that this matter is receiving the attention of the Board of Education,
and my hope is that it will be pushed forward. I do not think that the type of education in any country school is what I have just put forward.

Mr. SHEPHERD: It is being done at the present time in 90 per cent. of our rural schools.

Sir M. CONWAY: I do not think, for instance, that the teaching of geography begins in the immediate neighbourhood of the school.

Mr. SHEPHERD: Yes, that is done.

Sir M. CONWAY: I am familiar with many country schools where certainly it is not done. The interest taken in country life is much greater if the children know something about the things around them. As a matter of fact, I think a young boy who has been thoroughly instructed in country affairs would be far less likely to want to go and settle in a town. If my suggestion were adopted, I do not think the children would want to go into the towns to the extent that they do at the present time. The reason for the present tendency is that the town offers the only kind of pleasure and interest which country children have been educated to delight in. The development of a varied system of country education is one of our greatest needs. I am not referring to a reform of secondary schools in this sense, but to the improvement and altered tendency of education in our primary village schools.
I agree that secondary agricultural schools are very valuable, but it is at the very start of the education of the children that a knowledge of the natural history of a locality is so important. I have heard it asserted that there is a difficulty in getting teachers capable of giving this kind of teaching, I think not.
The President of the Board of Education said that the test of efficiency and advance in the Board's work was a cash test; the more money spent on education the better the system. I do not deny that money has its influence, but the test of efficiency in education is not the money spent upon it but the enthusiasm of the teachers. If you have an enthusiastic body of teachers taking a keen interest in the life of the children, you can accomplish great things.
Such men will watch the children grow up and develop under their hands. They possess a real passion for their work. That is one result to bring about. Of course teachers of that order must be well paid and independent. Efficient teachers must be given much personal initiative and be allowed to adapt their teaching to the class of children they have to instruct. Therefore, I am always glad to hear of anything that tends to the greater development of the teaching staff.
I should like every primary and secondary school teacher to be, if possible, a university graduate, though I do not think that any examination, or any system of proof or diploma, can give or even test that quality which I regard as essential; indeed, it is quite likely that among the number of un-certificated teachers, of whom we have heard a good deal to-day, many may be found to possess the essential vital spark, which is not to be acquired at any training college or university or by any examination or diploma or degree. I remember my old friend Mark Twain once telling me that the difference between one doctor and another was, not that either had attained this or the other degree, but that some had the faculty of healing and others had not. It is exactly the same with teaching; some have the faculty of teaching and some have not. Of those who have that faculty we want to multiply the number and those who have not that faculty we want to weed out.
I have been much interested by the statement made by the President of the Board of Education, and also by the criticism of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones). He, quite rightly, attempted to lay his hand on all the weak spots he could find, but I am delighted to think that he was able to find so few. On the whole, it is pleasant to feel that in this House, although we are divided on broad general principles of political theory, yet in practice, when it comes to a question like education, we are really all of one mind. Some want to go faster in one direction, and some want to go faster in another, but all alike want to go ahead. It is very stimulating to hear from my right hon. Friend, who knows the whole field throughout, that this enormous engine
of his for education, with all its committees, all its reports, and so on, is, on the whole, working for the benefit of the country and tending to introduce from year to year better systems of education for the masses of our people.

Mr. ERNEST EVANS: Last week I saw in more than one newspaper the comment that, in view of the approach of a General Election, Parliament in an increasing and special way was being used as a platform; and, when I saw the President of the Board of Education rise to initiate the discussion to-day, I had at the same time the hope and the fear that he was going to follow the precedent which, as I gathered from the newspapers, was set last week by Members of the House. Having heard his speech, I am prepared to acquit him of any such intention, and I listened with very great interest to his account of the work which he has accomplished during the last four years. My fear that he might be going to make an election speech arose from an intense desire on my part that these developments which we all desire to see accomplished in educational activity within the next few years should not be made the subject of party controversy. My hope arose from the desire to see this subject become increasingly a subject of interest in this House and among the public generally.
As I look upon the educational system of this country at the present time, my feelings, I must confess, alternate between great hope and great disappointment. The disappointment arises from the lack of interest displayed by a great number of people in this great problem. It was said, I am afraid with some truth, by the hon. Member for the English Universities (Sir M. Conway), that our discussions on education in this House partake of what he called abstract treatment of the problem. If that be so, it is partly due to the Rules of Procedure, under which the subjects that we can discuss in Committee of Supply are very limited; but I am afraid it is also due in some part to a lack of real appreciation of what is meant when we talk about education, on the part of persons of the type that we sometimes describe as the average politician. That is a very misleading phrase, because there is no such person as the
average politician. Every politician considers himself to be above the average, and every average person considers himself to be above the politician—and that is why he remains an average person. But, while there is this lack of real interest, I wish that the House might have, as suggested by the hon. Member for the English Universities, an opportunity of considering education, not merely from the point of view of the administrative details of the work, but from the point of view of presenting to the House and the country something in the nature of a real survey of the whole national activities at present involved in our educational system, and the expansion of those activities which is necessary in order to make them more appropriate to the needs of the time.
I am a little surprised that some of those who entertain considerable doubts as to the real value of our educational system in this country are at the same time the very people who are most vocal and vociferous in their complaints of the tendency, which manifests itself among a large number of people in this country, to entertain what they are pleased to call revolutionary doctrines. It seems to me that that is a very short-sighted view. It is forgotten that it is the uneducated person to-day who is the prey of the revolutionary, just as in days gone by the uneducated person was the puppet of the reactionary. After all, it is only in poor soil that weeds flourish, and there is very little difference between the success of the growth of the weed of complacency and of the thistle, shall I say, of sedition and revolution.
If we really want to create a healthy citizenship in this country, the first essential is that we should do everything in our power to see that those who are now growing up, and who in a few years will be bearing upon their shoulders the responsibilities of citizenship, shall be boys and girls who have had a fairer chance under our educational system of acquiring for themselves the facility and the ability for thinking out things for themselves. We find, however, that about 500,000 children leave our elementary schools every year at the age of 14, and I think it is a fair estimate that, of that number, 80 per cent., when they leave at the age of 14, are experiencing a break in their
association with educational endeavour and activity which is final and complete. When one remembers basic facts and figures; of this character, it is pure hypocrisy to talk, as some do, about the failure of education in this country. What we are suffering from is not education, but the lack or insufficiency of educational facilities at the present time.
While that consideration does give rise to some despondency, yet, on the other hand, I entertain feelings of great hope when I see the increasing interest that is being taken by all classes in this country in the cause of education. I think it is a very significant fact—if I may use the illustration, not from any national pride, but because it is a fact within my own knowledge—that, despite even the acute industrial depression which prevails in the greater part of Wales at the present time, and despite the great hardships which the population of parts of Wales are suffering, the numbers of boys and girls in our secondary schools in Wales, and the numbers of our students at the university colleges, are being maintained at practically the same strength as in the period before these acutely depressing conditions set in. That is a symptom and a symbol of the real interest taken in the cause of education in that part of the country, and of the real desire which enables and inspires parents to make great sacrifices in order to secure for their children better opportunities in life than would otherwise be available for them. I am quite prepared to believe that what is true in Wales is true also of other parts of the United Kingdom.
While, as I have said, there is room for disappointment, I believe that the giving of the finest educational facilities to our boys and girls, and to those who have passed the age of boyhood and girlhood, is to be regarded, not as a privilege to be grudgingly bestowed upon them, but as a right to which they are undeniably entitled in view of the responsibilities of citizenship which they will have to undertake when they grow up. I gathered from the Prime Minister's speeches—both that which he delivered at Drury Lane and that which he broadcast last night—that he fully agrees with these views, and they are views which I venture to hope will command the assent of the great majority in this House. Quite
frankly, I do not believe that they command the assent of all of us, but I do hope that they command the assent of the majority. When we are discussing this matter in Committee of Supply, we want to know from the representative of the Board of Education, not what are the ideas which may be entertained as regards the future, but what is being done now in order to prepare the way for the fulfilment of these ideals in the near future. The Prime Minister, in his speech at Drury Lane, said it might be that a new Education Act would be necessary. I have not examined that statement, but I accept it. I would, however, remind the Government that, under the existing law there is already room for considerable development, without any new legislative enactment.
Let me take as an illustration a question which affects the raising of the school age and the reorganisation of the schools, of which we have heard so much this afternoon. I venture to remind the Committee of it because I am afraid it is a matter which is apt to be forgotten. The great Act which was passed in 1918, under the inspiration of Mr. Fisher, incorporated the principle that no child or young person should be debarred from receiving the benefits of any form of education by which they are capable of profiting, through inability to pay fees. The putting of that principle into practice does not require any new legislation; it can be put into operation under the existing law by any Board of Education or any Government that is prepared to do so. With a view to putting it into effect after 1918, local authorities were asked to prepare schemes for the gradual organisation of education within their areas, and for compulsory day continuation schools of a part-time character on a basis to be agreed upon between each local education authority and the Board of Education. I believe that financial considerations were mainly responsible for holding up that part of the Act, and I want to say in passing that I think it is a very bad principle, when you have a scheme of that sort incorporated in an Act of Parliament, that that scheme should be held up by administrative action. It is not right, when Parliament in its wisdom has given expression to a definite policy, that the Executive in the
form of the Government of the day should assume to itself the power to delay putting that policy into operation. That is a matter which I only mention in passing.
Financial considerations were mainly responsible for holding up the putting into operation of this policy, but the President of the Board of Education to-day seemed to suggest that in his view the main reason for its postponement was the existence of difficulties and misunderstandings in regard to what is called technical education. I regret that these difficulties have existed, and apparently they still exist, although I hope that my hon. Friend who spoke last was not right when he said that the bulk of the people still believed that a literary education was the foundation of all education. I believe that those interested in education are making a profound mistake to-day when they are inclined to indulge, as some people are, in constant talk about the difference between what they call education for vocational purposes, and education for what they call cultural purposes. There is no necessity for emphasising the difficulty between the two things, and there is a great deal of danger in doing so.
After all, technical education to-day is a different thing from what it was when we used the phrase many years ago. The technical education which is given to-day in itself and of necessity involves mental processes which are of a high cultural value. On the other hand, it is no good trying to think that you are going to help the association of education with industry if you give boys and girls an education of a purely technical character, because in any industry you will be told by the leaders that that is not sufficient. With a technical knowledge you require other things, particularly clear thinking and clear expression to your thoughts. Therefore, we are doing great harm to this subject when we constantly exaggerate the alleged difference between cultural and technical education. The two things can go hand in hand, and in that way can be of immense value to our country.
I said that these things cannot be done in a day. I agree that the Noble Lord can quite fairly claim—and I am not going to grudge him the claim for a single moment—that progress has been
made in several directions in the course of the last four or five years. But when you talk of progress you have to make up your mind what are the two types or the two circumstances which you are comparing. There has been great progress compared with pre-War days. The Noble Lord spoke of what he called the post-War mentality, and he seemed to think that the post-War mentality was against progress in education. I differ from him entirely. At the end of the War there was existing in this country a mentality which was sufficiently interested in education, and inspired by high ideals in regard to it, that we could have gone forward to the full operation of everything in the Fisher Act if it had not been for the call of economy preventing it. When the Noble Lord and the Prime Minister talk about the ideals which they have in mind, I want to remind them that those things cannot be put into operation in the course of one year, or two years, or even three years. The Noble Lord said to-day that next autumn, the local education committees of this country would be producing their second series of three-year programmes. What treatment is he going to mete out to that second series of three-year programmes? Is he going to mete out to that second series the same treatment as was given to the first series?

Duchess of ATHOLL: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the Committee what is the treatment that my right hon. Friend meted out to the three-year programme?

Mr. EVANS: I was just coming to that. On the last occasion, the Noble Lord went about the country making excellent speeches inviting local education authorities to prepare programmes for three years with regard to several matters—the size of classes, the conditions of the schools—and to frame schemes for real progressive development in the course of three years. When they produced their programmes, they did not get them accepted by the Board.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Will the hon. Member be kind enough to inform the Committee of any areas which have not had their programmes accepted by the Noble Lord?

Mr. EVANS: Although they put in their schemes they were not able to get on with them.

Duchess of ATHOLL: The hon. Member does not seem to be aware that we are in the middle of programmes just now, the programmes for which my right hon. Friend called after he went to the Board. They were put into operation in April, 1927, and local authorities are working on them at the present moment.

Mr. EVANS: The programmes, if the Noble Lady will forgive me for saying so, put up by local authorities, were cut down in several respects in many parts of the country, and certainly they did not receive the consideration which the local education authorities were entitled to expect, and which they did expect in view of the speeches the Noble Lord had made in different parts of the country. All I am asking is that when local education authorities are asked to prepare schemes for a three-year programme they will not have face a similar exception to them. The Report of the Board of Education mentions the matter of reorganisation, and it says in page 11 that it is not possible to make any statistical estimate of the progress achieved. I am not going to complain about that. If the Board say that they have not the figures, it is no use pressing the matter, but they ought to be able to give us a little more information on that point.
I want, in conclusion, to ask the Noble Lady, representing the Board of Education, two questions: First, whether the Board have formed any estimate as to how long it is contemplated that at the present rate of progress the reorganisation which the Board have in mind will take; and, secondly, whether the Board have entertained any expectations of being able to expedite the rate of progress in the organisation as compared with what it is at the present time? Can the Board form any definite opinion of the effect of the reaction of that reorganisation upon the profession of teachers generally, and especially upon specialist teachers? Have the Board a definitely clear idea with regard to reorganisation on these two things? As I have said, the points that we can raise in a discussion of this sort are limited to questions of administration, and therefore I cannot go beyond them, but a declaration of that sort would be welcomed by all interested
in education, and by all who have been inspired to take a more hopeful view of things by the speech made by the Prime Minister in the course of last week.
If I may ask a third question, it is whether the Government have any hopes of being able, in the event of their being returned to power, to make a declaration in the next Parliament as to the date on which they hope to be able to provide for raising the school age? These are matters of information, and matters of real practical importance to all who are interested in education. They are matters of machinery, and machinery in itself cannot accomplish its purposes unless it has motive power behind it. I hope that the references that the Prime Minister has made to the subject of education, and that a Debate of this character will really be the means of helping and inspiring the House to supply that motive power by enabling us to take an even greater interest in the advance of education, and to give all the assistance in our power to those responsible for its administration.

Mr. COVE: I hope the Committee will forgive me saying that the Debate so far has had an air of unreality, and that the unreality that has characterised the Debate so far as it has gone has been due to the fact that we in this Committee this afternoon have been indulging in the expression of philosophic and theoretical idealism. We have not made this Debate what it should be in my judgment, namely, an Estimates Debate. We have not until now sufficiently examined, as they are revealed in the Estimates of the Board of Education, in the Report of the Board and in the Memorandum, the doings and the failures of the present administrator, and there are failures. I believe that I shall be able to show before I sit down from the figures which have been supplied by the Board's own Department that there has been reaction at the Board of Education, that the progress in equipment which the President of the Board said was the measure of progress, has not maintained the pre-War rate or even the rate that obtained during the War period. I hope to be able to show also that the claims of the Conservative party that they have reduced the size of classes has not resulted
in a reduction in general, but a reduction in one sphere of administration at the expense of another sphere of administration. The size of classes, for instance, for those children over 11 years of age has been reduced, but it is equally true, as I hope to show by figures from the Board's Estimate, that the reductions in the size of classes which have taken place in regard to children over 11 have been effected at the expense of children in the elementary schools under the age of 11.
I charge the President of the Board of Education with, I will not say deliberately, but effectively leading the Committee astray into the field of philosophic disquisition. I am not going to follow him except to say that I am very suspicious of the principles which he enunciated this afternoon. They need a great deal of clarifying. They need, it is true, a great deal of showing how they would work in practice. At the same time, it is a legitimate observation to make upon the speech which the President delivered when I say that there is a great danger that the education system of this country may become dominated by and tied to the industries of this country. There was a great danger, from the speech which I heard from the Noble Lord this afternoon, that the main purpose, if not the whole purpose of our education, would be to subserve industry in this country. I disagree with that contention, and I enter my protest against it. Neither the schools nor the Minister of Education ought to be dominated by the needs of industry. There is a great danger that the domination of the schools by the needs of industry will not, in the long run, even serve the needs of industry itself. Therefore, I would say quite hopefully that when the next President of the Board of Education makes his statement on the Estimates—I hope he will be a Labour Minister—he will not hold such views.
The right hon. Gentleman to-day pictured the secondary school as a building or institution which would be devoted entirely to literary and cultural subjects, carrying out, as I understood him, the old grammar school idea in modern times. It is a correct historical observation to say that the grammar schools, the purely literary schools, all through the ages have been associated
with the dominant class, with the distinct ruling class, and that vocational education all down the ages has been associated with the subservient class. That is not the philosophy and outlook of the Labour party. We might indulge in a discussion of what is vocational and what is literary, but my point is that in a class-ridden society, such as we have under the capitalist system, we are bound to have literary education always associated with class distinction and class privilege.
I come to an examination of the Estimates. I will deal first with expenditure. The President of the Board of Education said that that was the acid test. Are you building schools? Are you renovating old schools? That is the acid test I accept that statement as true. We can test whether the Department is progressive or reactionary by the acid test of the money available for new buildings. You cannot put the secondary system fully into being, or carry out the reorganisation of the education system, or teach the children properly, or have the equipment which is necessary, or bring about reduction in the size of classes, or have the essentials that are necessary for good education unless there are plenty of good, well-equipped buildings. Is the President of the Board of Education providing those buildings at the present time? I have in my possession a joyous pamphlet issued by the Conservative party, entitled, "What the Conservative Government has done for education." One would imagine that the Tory Government has done something for education, on reading this pamphlet; that the Tory Government had caused an acceleration of progress. One would imagine from the optimistic, armchair, smoke-my-pipe chat of the Prime Minister that the Tories had caused a large number of school buildings to be erected. That proud feeling is expressed in this wonderful pamphlet. One section of the pamphlet deals with school buildings and capital expenditure, which provides the test which the right hon. Gentleman has enunciated to-day. It says:
During the three years ended 31st March, 1928, proposals for no fewer than 221 new elementary schools have been approved, mainly in order to meet the needs of new housing estates.
When I read that statement, I was rather startled. I felt that there must have been some progress. Two hundred and twenty-one new elementary schools approved in the last three years! I thought that that was not bad for a Tory Government, and I began to feel that we had converted the President of the Board of Education during the fight we had with him in 1925 over the reactionary Circular No. 1371. In passing, might I say that what has prevented the Tory Government from making drastic economies in education has been a vigilant public opinion, and the credit does not rest with the President of the Board of Education that there has not been drastic economies in the education service. In the words of the official organ of the education authority, in a leading article on the 4th December, 1925, characterising the policy of the President of the Board of Education in connection with Circular 1371:
Lord Eustace Percy swoops from heights to depths of unwisdom. Lord Eustace's plan is crude, inequitable and unintelligible.
There is a fine row of adjectives characterising the progressive spirit, the progressive administration of the President of the Board of Education! In 1925, through Circular 1371 and the Memorandum, the right hon. Gentleman tried to put into operation the block grant. He tried to limit the expenditure of local authorities for three years. In short, the effort in 1925 was to create even more stagnation than has ensued since 1925 owing to the defeat of the Government by public opinion. Let me get back to the acid test. I thought that the approval of 221 new schools was an immensely progressive number for a Tory Government, and I began to make investigation. What is the normal rate of progress? Has the right hon. Gentleman been keeping step with what has been the ordinary normal development? I go back to the record for the year 1911. In that year I find, from the official record of the Board of Education, that up to the 31st July in England, 192 council schools and 29 voluntary schools were sanctioned, while in Wales 46 council schools were sanctioned, making a total for England and Wales of 238 council schools, or 267 council and voluntary
schools. The proud boast of the Conservative party is that 221 schools have been sanctioned in three years.

Duchess of ATHOLL: May I correct the hon. Member?

Mr. COVE: I must finish my figures.

Duchess of ATHOLL: It is well that I should correct the hon. Member. If he is going to make any further reference to the figures given in the Conservative pamphlet it would be fair to remind him that the figure of 221 which he has quoted was only up to the 31st March last year. The figures up to the 31st December last year are 547.

Mr. COVE: That does not make any difference to my argument. My argument is that the Conservative party have not built schools in step with the normal development, and I am proving that. Perhaps the Noble Lady will see that the revised figures are put into the pamphlet before the General Election, so that we shall be able to analyse them. In the year 1912, 210 schools were sanctioned in England and 50 in Wales, making a total of 260. In addition, 18 voluntary schools were sanctioned, the aggregate for 1912 for council and voluntary schools amounting to 278. For the year ending 31st July, 1913, 139 council schools were sanctioned in England and 25 in Wales, with 18 voluntary schools, making a total of 182. To 31st July, 1914, 136 council schools were sanctioned in England and 34 in Wales which together with 14 voluntary schools made a total of 184 for 1914. That is the normal rate of expansion. These figures, taken from the official records of the Board of Education, prove conclusively that the rate of building sanctioned by the President of the Board of Education is not the normal rate of expansion that has always obtained.
Let us look at this year's Report. Again, we may have a correction from the Noble Lady, but I would remind her that we are discussing what has been published. I have been discussing what I have found in the official documents of the Board of Education, and figures ought not to be sprung upon us from the Government Front Bench without our having any chance of analysing them and seeing what they really mean. In this
Year's Report, there are some very interesting comparisons in the Welsh section. I would congratulate the Welsh Department on the simplicity, straightforwardness, and truthfulness of its Report. There is no difficulty in following the section which deals with Welsh education, but there is very considerable difficulty in following the section which deals with English education. I should imagine that a great deal of astuteness has gone to the making up of the English Report, and that straightforward honesty has given us the portion which deals with Welsh education.

Lieut.-Commander ASTBURY rose—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir Dennis Herbert): I cannot allow two hon. Members on their feet at the same time.

Lieut.-Commander ASTBURY: Is the hon. Member suggesting that the English Report is not true?

7.0 p.m.

Mr. COVE: I am suggesting a bit of honesty on the part of Wales. From the Report it would appear that in the year 1927–28 there was a slight increase in the number of proposals sanctioned under Section 18 of the Education Act, 1921, for the provision of new schools, six new schools being sanctioned as compared with four in 1926–27. I would draw the attention of the Committee to those figures for Wales, and I would remind them that the normal figures were 46, 50, 25 and 34, which proves conclusively that, in Wales in particular, as in the case generally of the whole of Great Britain, the normal pre-War rate of building has not by any means been attained during recent years. When we consider that in the post-War period there has also been the need for meeting the expansion in the newly-developed areas, such as the new mining areas and the new housing estates, we can see that, if we eliminate that post-War problem, normal needs have been even worse met than appears from the figures. Before the War there was not this need for meeting demands for schools on new building estates.
Again taking the case of Wales, I find that there was a black list which included 268 schools, on which were placed the names of the schools from which recognition should be withdrawn as soon as other accommodation could be provided.
On this point of the black list, I would put some questions to the Noble Lady, who, I understand, is going to reply. I find on page 14 a table giving the schools which were blacklisted. In List A, there were 219 schools, in List B 345, and in List C, 150, making a total of 714 council schools, while, as regards the voluntary schools, there were 460 in List A, 1,421 in List B, and 232 in List C. I understood that the schools in List A were bad beyond repair and that the only fate that ought to await these rotten, insanitary, death-breeding institutions was extinction and demolition, as they had got into such a state that repair was out of the question. How comes it about then that out of these schools they have managed to remedy the defects of 11 of the council schools and of 39 of the voluntary schools? What spiritual outlook—if I may use the phrase—has been employed in these denominational schools to make 39 of them again fit for habitation? What has been done to make 11 council schools fit to be used as schools? That fact in itself shows that the Board of Education is lowering the standard of requirements of school building; it is accepting a standard which it ought not to accept. Has it not agreed to accept repairs for schools which, according to the official pronouncement of the inspectors themselves, ought long ago to have been razed to the ground? How does it come about that these schools have now been accepted as buildings which can be inhabited? As to the repairs to these various schools, my suspicion, which is based upon some investigation is that the Board of Education is taking credit to itself for remedying a high percentage of schools by including in its figures such repairs as repairs to the latch of a door, so as to include in the figures schools in which a minimum of repairs is required in order to swell the percentage of repairs. I have also shown from the figures of the schools sanctioned that the President of the Board of Education is not meeting the normal rate of school building that obtained prior to the War.
Let us examine the finance of these Estimates. The Noble Lord boasted that there had been an expansion in capital expenditure. I shall prove that the Board of Education is being burdened with hardly a penny for the finance of new
buildings, and that the loan charges are no additional burden on the finances of the Board. The loan charges for 1924–25 were £3,898,000, for 1925–26 £3,896,000, for 1926–27 £3,885,000 and for 1927–28 £3,848,000. Roughly speaking, there is stabilisation and no expansion in the loan charges. That is borne out on page 10 of the Memorandum, where it appears that pre-War loan charges—indicating that capital expenditure which the President of the Board of Education said was the acid test—cost 11s. 4d. per child. In 1925–26 the figures were 11s. 6d., in 1926–27 11s. 2d., in 1927–28 11s. 7d., while the Estimates for 1928–29 were 12s. 11d. and for 1929–30 13s. 1d. per child. Those figures show that the financial burden on the Board is exactly the same for all practical purposes at the present time and throughout the regimé of the Noble Lord as it was during 1913–14. There is the same cost per child now as in 1913–14, in spite of the fact that the cost of building materials is higher and the value of money is lower, in spite of the fact that that we had a great leeway to make up owing to building being stopped during the War and during the Geddes regime, and in spite of the black-listed schools. Notwithstanding the crying need for a great expansion in educational building, the loan charges per child for building purposes stand at exactly the same figure as in the pre-War period. I am, therefore, fully justified in saying that, judged by the test of expansion for building purposes, which is a very necessary test, the present administration is one of stagnation and reaction, and that the great need for new buildings, either to replace old schools or for new developed areas, has not been met because the President of the Board of Education will not find the money by which they can be financed.
Let us now look at the classes. One of the greatest benefits that can accrue to our educational system is the continual reduction in the size of classes. Prom the figures before us it appears that, in the case of children under 11, the number of classes over 40 has increased by over 5,000, while, in the case of children over 11, the number of classes over 40 has been reduced by about 5,000. This means that the younger children now in our schools under the age of 11 are being taught in large classes, and that the children of the men who won the War have got to pay for the War again in
their education. They are to be the sufferers, and for the Noble Lord to claim that there has been progress in this respect is not exactly true. I grant that there is a lop-sided progress, there has been a reduction in the size of classes for children over 11, but there has been an increase for children under 11. Hence the younger children in the elementary schools are going to pay for the smaller classes in the schools for children over 11.
What about general finance? Everyone who has examined the figures must have realised that the continued policy of the Board of Education for some years now has been to throw the main burden of progress upon the rates, to lighten the burden of taxes and to lower the ratio of grants to expenditure from the rates. It was an amazing thing to me to find that the Noble Lord did not know this afternoon what was in his own Memorandum, and actually confessed that he was ignorant of what was stated on page 6 of that Memorandum:
The decrease in grants for elementary education amounted to £494,000, the result of an anticipated increase of £256,000 due to the increased expenditure of the local authorities and a net decrease of £750,000 due to the estimated increased produce of a 7d. rate, which acts as a grant reducing factor.
This year the President of the Board of Education is throwing £750,000, which ought to be met by grants, on to rates. The ratepayers are to be burdened with this £750,000, and if we analyse the Estimates still further we find that he has made no financial accommodation for this year. Where is the compensation. Some of the compensation I know comes under the operation of the 50 per cent. grant, but when that is analysed you find that it operates to the advantage of rich authorities and the disadvantage of poor authorities. I have a statement here drawn up by a financial authority who has analysed the figures in great detail, and he shows that the poor authorities, the distressed industrial areas, will suffer greatly owing to the fact that no allowance is made for increased assessment under the Rating and Valuation Act.
This policy of quietly throwing these increasing burdens on to the rates is crippling education, and whoever goes into the Department when the Noble Lord has gone will have to settle down and deal with the finance of the matter before
any real progress in education can be made. He will have to see that in the case of highly rated areas like Gateshead, Mountain Ash, and Barrow, and the necessitous areas, some special arrangement is made by which they will not be called upon to bear such a large portion of the financial burden as they do at the present moment. These areas will be plunging straight into the de rating scheme, and will be robbed of some of their rateable value. In addition they are to have this increased burden thrown upon them this year. The position will have to be met. No wonder the Noble Lord skated quickly over the question of finance and entered into the realm of theory. The real policy of the Noble Lord is to unload on to rates burdens which ought to be borne by taxes.
Coming now to the question of reorganisation, what do we find? In the "New Prospect" three principles of policy are enunciated, and I presume they are taken from a summary in the Board's own language of the Hadow Report:
(1) That primary education should be regarded as ending at about the age of 11, and should then go forward to some form of post-primary education;
(2) That this second stage should as far as possible be envisaged as a single whole, within which there should be variety of types of education;
(3) That legislation should be passed fixing, as from 1932, the age of 15 years as that to which attendance should be obligatory.
Only one of these principles has been accepted by the Noble Lord. He has not accepted the basic principle of the Hadow Report. He has accepted the principle that there should be a reorganisation of the children below the age of 11. In the words of the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) he has accepted a policy of reshuffling. He has not accepted the policy of raising the school age. As a matter of fact, before the Report was published the Noble Lord went out of his way to announce that the Government would not accept the policy of raising the school age. You cannot reorganise your educational system unless you are prepared to raise the school age. That is the foundation stone of any re-organisation which is worth anything. Neither has the Noble Lord accepted the policy that all education above the age of 11
years should be secondary education—I use that word for convenience sake. What does he mean by higher education? Is it merely a statutory declaration, or is the President of the Board of Education going to provide money which will give equal conditions in all schools for children above the age of 11 years? Are the children of the workers above the age of 11 to have the same physical amenities, the same atmosphere, the same educational facilities, the same size of classes, the same equipment, books, playing fields, the same provisions for the teaching of science, the teaching of art, and the teaching of handicrafts, are they going to have equal facilities with those in the secondary schools? Does the Noble Lord mean that? It seems to me that the policy of the Board of Education is still to make a differentiation between the children above the age of 11 years in these schools and those in the secondary schools. The policy of the Labour party is to raise the school age, and I hope the Liberal party will be able to say that equally it is their policy. I have looked in the Yellow Book—

Mr. HARRIS: It is in our White Book.

Mr. COVE: I understand that the Yellow Book is the one to look at, except for questions dealing with agriculture which I believe is a Green Book. There is certainly no recommendation in the Yellow Book for the raising of the school age; there is nothing there to guarantee that the Liberal party agrees with the policy of raising the school age. As a matter of fact, the Liberal party is very unsettled on this point, and when the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green was speaking I was hoping that we were going to have a pronouncement of Liberal policy on this point, and that they would have been definitely committed to a raising of the school age. The Conservative party refuses to raise the school age. The Labour party stands for the raising of the school age, with maintenance grants. That is clearly and definitely the policy of the Labour party. Their aim is to get the same conditions in all schools for children above the age of 11 years. Equality; that is the aim of the Labour party. The Tory party is still committed to a policy of class distinction within our educational system.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I must remind the hon. Member that he must not discuss matters which require legislation.

Mr. COVE: I am not quite sure that this does require legislation. I think it can be done administratively.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That may be true in regard to what the hon. Member is going to say; but it is not true in regard to what he has said.

Mr. CRAWFURD: May I remind the hon. Member that it was the last Liberal President of the Board of Education who made it possible to raise the school age now.

Mr. COVE: I do not want to go back on that subject, but if the hon. Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. Crawfurd) will look into the figures he will find that the President of the Board of Education in the Coalition Government has a worse record than the present President of the Board of Education; he will find that the capital expenditure was lower during Mr. Fisher's administration than it is now.

Mr. SHEPHERD: Since education authorities have now authority to raise the school age to 15 years and that 400 have done so, will it be permissible to use that argument in the Debate to-night?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Hon. Members are perfectly entitled to discuss anything which can be done administratively, but not anything which requires legislation. They cannot discuss proposed legislation or suggest legislation.

Mr. COVE: My main purpose was to get an official announcement from the Liberal party as to whether they were prepared to raise the school age.

Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH: It is here:
Other steps to reduce or mitigate unemployment (1) raising the school age.

Mr. COVE: If the hon. Member will read further he will see that there is a reference to other documents. That is a general statement. I have looked through the Yellow Book and I cannot find that they are committed to the raising of the school age. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) will make an official announcement to-night
as leader of the party this Debate will have done a great deal of good. I think there is need for a re-statement of the policy of the Liberal party in order to make it perfectly definitely clear.
I want to raise the case of Warminster. I raised it last year. It is the case of the closing of a secondary school serving about 13,000 inhabitants. I should like to know whether the President of the Board is committed to the closing of this school? Is it too late to ask that the whole question should be reopened? I doubt whether there has ever been such a case within his administrative experience as that obtaining in Warminster He has adopted a most curious way of dealing with the situation. This is a school which is going to close, but instead of closing it at once the right hon. Gentleman is allowing it to die gradually. Children are allowed to remain in a dying school. The headmaster has retired, but the assistant headmaster is told to carry on with about £10 per year extra. Into this dying school 35 children have been brought who are to form the nucleus of a new school which is not to be a secondary school. Is it too late to ask that this policy should be revised. Has the President approved of it? Has he agreed with the authority that this school, which undoubtedly meets the need of about 35,000 inhabitants in a district where there is no other secondary school, should be closed? I want an assurance from him that this school will not be closed, but will still remain a secondary school, staffed for secondary purposes and carried on under secondary regulations.
The Conservative party dare not face the electors with the full facts of the administration of the Board before them. We are ready to meet them on the electoral platforms. We are ready to say that the normal rate of development in school buildings and the normal rate of reduction of classes has not been met by the administration. We are ready to say that the Board's policy of finance is a crippling policy, has thrown an ever-increasing burden on the rates, and has been a throwing off of financial responsibility from the Exchequer on to the ratepayers. It is a policy which will eventually cripple the educational service
of the country, and will be resented and resisted by the electors in the next six weeks.

Duchess of ATHOLL: The rhetoric to which we are accustomed in these Debates from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Cove) has been poured more lavishly than usual upon us in the last hour. The hon. Member is not accustomed to stint his words or his time.

Mr. COVE: May I ask the Noble Lady to refer to the time occupied by other speakers?

Duchess of ATHOLL: I was just going to try to bring the Committee back to the speech, not very much shorter But perhaps less rhetorical, with which the Debate was opened from the Liberal side. The hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) asked a question about the increased amount of the 7d. rate resulting from the increased assessment due to the Bating and Valuation Act of 1925, and he appeared to think that in this larger deduction from the grant calculation there was some danger to the finance of local education authorities. I would like to assure him that we have had no protests from local education authorities on the subject. After all, the local education authorities of this country know that there is a very open road to travel to the Board of Education, and they are accustomed to tread that road as freely and as often as they like, and I think not without hope of a friendly reception at the end of it. Therefore, if this had been causing widespread or serious anxiety, I am certain that the Board would have heard of it. I think it possible that local authorities may have taken a rather longer view of the question than has the hon. Member; they may have remembered that, when the de-rating proposals of the Government come into operation six months hence, that formula under which the product of a 7d. rate is deducted from the grant, will operate very much in their favour, and they may have hesitated therefore to draw the attention of the Board of Education to any inconvenience that the present year may bring them.
Then the hon. Gentleman went on to express anxiety as to the effect of our de-rating scheme generally on education. I would remind him of two things. The
first is that it has been found pretty generally in rural areas, or found frequently, that farmers have not always been too ready to support increased expenditure on education. That is not surprising, because the burden of rates was felt severely by them. Is it not reasonable to suppose that if a very heavy burden has been removed from their shoulders, and if three-quarters of a heavy burden has also been removed from the shoulders of industrialists, we shall be left without any class of the community that feels as severely any rise in rates, as is at present the case? Secondly, I would remind the hon. Member of the very largely increased grants which are coming to county boroughs and county councils, and how those grants will come in greatest measure to the most distressed areas at present labouring under high rates. Therefore, I do not think there is any great cause for anxiety in regard to the pressure of rates in the near future.
The hon. Gentleman made light of the references in the Prime Minister's recent speeches to what we hope to do for the children under five years of age in a certain probable eventuality. He said, "Why have an inquiry? Will not that postpone for two or three years any action on this important matter?" The hon. Member quite forgot how very big the problem is. It is not merely a problem of trying to improve the environment and training of the child under five in the slum areas; it is also a problem, to which the Board's Chief Medical Officer has drawn attention, of doing what is possible to improve the health generally of the entrants to the elementary schools of the country. That is a very big question. Those two matters are being dealt with at present in some measure in four different ways. We have had for some time not only nursery schools but day nurseries. We have also had nursery classes for these small children in elementary schools. Some of the leading education authorities prefer these. Last, but not least, as affecting the general health of all the children under five, we have a child welfare service.
Those are four agencies for dealing with what is not only an important problem, but a two-fold problem. Is it not reasonable that we should have a little fuller time for investigation into the best methods of dealing with this two-fold
problem, rather than commit ourselves at once to dealing with it in one particular way? We have further to remember that the Board's Chief Medical Officer has put on paper proposals for some new type of organisation which would combine some of the best features of the nursery schools and the day nurseries. Therefore, it seems to me that the Government's proposal for an inquiry before definite commitment as to the particular line of procedure is thoroughly justified, and the Prime Minister promised that the inquiry would be immediate.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the question of dental treatment. The results of dental inspection are so far disappointing. At the same time, there has been more inspection and treatment than I think the hon. Member mentioned. We had 635,000 more inspections between 1924 and 1927 and 280,000 more treatments during that period. But of course the treatments lag sadly behind the inspections; personally, I shall be very glad if the fact that attention has been drawn to this matter brings to the notice of local authorities and parents the importance of seeing that children with defective teeth are attended to by a dentist. The next question that the hon. Gentleman referred to was that of down grading due to reorganisation schemes. No decision on this question has been taken by the Board in the last four and a half years. The decision to which he referred was given, I understand, by a previous administration. Under the last Burnham Agreement, the Board has provided for an increased margin to meet cases of that kind. But we have to remember that this is largely what we call at the Board "a Burnham question," for discussion between the two sides on the Burnham Committee, and it is not easy for me to say much on the matter.

Mr. HARRIS: It would give great satisfaction to hundreds of teachers who are affected if the Noble Lady could give an assurance that there would be an early meeting of the Burnham Committee to consider this pressing question.

Duchess of ATHOLL: It does not rest with the Board to summon the Burnham Committee. That can be done at any time by either side. If either side has a question to bring up, the procedure is open to it. The hon. Gentleman also
raised the question of reorganisation, with which I shall deal later. As to technical buildings, he told us how much better the German buildings are than many of ours. There is no question that a great many of our technical buildings require improvement, but we have in the last four years approved an expenditure on the improving or rebuilding of technical buildings just about double what was approved in the preceding five years. Therefore, I do not think it can be said that the Board has shown itself unmindful of the importance of better housing for much of our technical instruction. It is not too much to say that in this matter of building almost more than anything else we have been, in the hon. Member's own words, "getting on with the work."
The hon. Member expressed a desire to see all pupils in the country attending one school. That may be an aim with which many of us sympathise, but it is a very much bigger question than hon. Members of the Liberal and Labour party sometimes remember. It is not merely a question of parents who may wish to send their children to well-known residential schools with a long and old tradition and rather high fees. There are many parents who cannot possibly afford to send their children to a school of that kind, but who will pay the fee necessary to send a child to some quite unknown private day school rather than to some free or lower feed, grant-aided or provided secondary school. They have the idea that it is a rather superior thing to do. That is one of the difficulties with which many of our grant-aided secondary schools have to contend. During the last four years, when visiting secondary schools, I cannot say how often it has been my fate to have it said to me, "We are so glad that you should come here and say a word for the work which we are doing in this school, because we have to meet the competition of so many inefficient private schools." It is not by any means as simple a question as hon. Members opposite indicate, and it is by no means a question which is confined to one particular section of the community.
I pass to the speech of my predecessor the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones). He devoted some time to the statement upon policy made by the Prime Minister in the summer of 1924. I can only say that it was of very great
interest and a very great pleasure to me, as I heard the hon. Member quoting that statement, to notice how in every respect we have been working for the fulfilment of the pledges then given and how much we have accomplished towards that end. I was particularly interested, because the statement closed with a promise to endeavour to co-ordinate primary, secondary, and technical instruction, and, I think university instruction, which was quite obviously leading up to the policy developed at greater length by the President of the Board of Education this afternoon.
Then the hon. Member turned to the question of the "black list." He was kind enough to congratulate us on having dealt with about 35 per cent. of that notorious list, but he expressed great shame that there were nearly 2,000 buildings still on that list. I can only say to him that if he saw the tables to which I have access, showing year by year the amount of capital expenditure on new buildings, he would have no doubt as to the amount of attention which is being devoted to this subject, or as to the extent of the liabilities which the Board has assumed in sanctioning expenditure on this account. Over the whole range of capital expenditure we have approved, in the last four years about three and a-half times the amount that was approved in the four years 1920–24. In think those figures speak for themselves, and, of course, in that great total of £25,000,000 to which my right hon. Friend referred earlier, though there is a substantial amount for secondary and technical schools, yet the vast majority is for the improvement or replacement—or for the building in new areas—of elementary schools. On the question of staffing, I understood the hon. Member to say that he wanted to see more teachers in order to prevent overcrowding, but I can assure him that the question of overcrowding does not depend in these days on the number of teachers, but on the number of rooms in school premises.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: Perhaps my language was rather loose, but I was thinking of overcrowding in the classes in the sense of having too many pupils in a class.

Duchess of ATHOLL: In every crowded school there comes a moment
at which you cannot reduce more classes, because you have not another room in which to accommodate your pupils, and that is the position which, in fact, these crowded schools have reached during the last few years, and therefore, as was rightly said by an hon. Member—I think it was by the hon. Member for Welling-borough, and, if so, I congratulate him—progress in the last four years has depended first and foremost on the provision of more accommodation. If the hon. Member had been here at the beginning of the Debate, he would have heard my right hon. Friend tell the Committee that £25,000,000 of capital expenditure had been sanctioned, which is about three and a-half times the amount sanctioned in the four years 1920–24. I understand my right hon. Friend gave the figures for five years, and therefore I am contrasting like with like—a four-year period with a four-year period—but, whichever way you take it, I submit that we have nothing to fear when judged by the acid test which the hon. Member himself would apply.

Mr. COVE: What about the loan charges and the cost per head?

Duchess of ATHOLL: There is, fortunately, in regard to loan charges, as in regard to other things, a happy day when finally they come to an end. That was the case with a good many of these Loan charges two or three years ago.

Mr. COVE: And so you give no more money.

Duchess of ATHOLL: The figure in regard to loan charges is 13s. 1d.—

Mr. COVE: That is an estimate.

Duchess of ATHOLL: And are we not discussing the Estimates of the Board of Education?

Mr. COVE: But you are not comparing like with like now.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I am afraid we are not always able to do that when discussing the Estimates of Government Departments, but the figures show that the position of two or three years ago in this respect was due to the number of loan charges which expired about that time. If I may turn again to the question of staffing, I think the hon. Member for Caerphilly is really giving himself unnecessary
anxiety on the point. Uncertificated teachers now include teachers of practical instruction which they formerly did not, and therefore it is not possible to compare exactly the figures of to-day with those of former periods, but, even so, there is a reduction of 500.

Mr. JONES: And that is over 318 authorities—that is two per authority.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Yes, but over the whole range of authorities there has been a very marked increase of certificated teachers, and, therefore, not only the actual number, but the proportion of uncertificated teachers is substantially less. The same thing applies, but in an even greater degree, to the supplementary teachers. There is an actual decline in the number of these teachers of 1,600 during the last two years, and when, on the other hand, I tell the Committee that in these four years there has been an increase of over 6,500 in the number of certificated teachers employed in this country, it will be recognised what a very real improvement has been made in the condition of staffing. I was also asked a question about big classes, and great concern was expressed by the hon. Member for Caerphilly at the fact that we have some 16,000 classes of over 50 children. I agree that it is a matter of concern that we should still have 16,000 classes of that size, but, when the hon. Member for Caerphilly went out of office, the number of these classes was 25,000, and therefore in 4½ years we have effected a reduction of about one-third in the number of these classes.

Mr. JONES: The Noble Lady will perhaps appreciate the fact that, in the course of my remarks, I made it abundantly clear that I had used every effort to obtain the figures for 1925–1926 but could not do so, because of the change in the nature of the reports. If the Noble Lady says that that is the figure I must accept her statement.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I find that it was the figure in 1924, when the Labour Government came into office, and not when they were leaving office. I am sorry if I misstated the period, but, broadly speaking, these four years have seen a substantial decrease in the number of classes over 50. Then I would like to
reassure the hon. Member for Welling-borough on the point which he raised in regard to the classes for children under 11. I think he told the Committee that while there had been a reduction in the number of large classes in the case of children over 11, there had been no such reduction in regard to the children under 11. Indeed, I am not sure that he did not say that there had been an increase.

Mr. COVE: There are 5,000 classes of 40 or more, above the number existing three or four years ago.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I am speaking for the moment of classes over 50, and in those classes in the last year there has been a reduction of over 4,000 altogether, of which more than 2,000 are classes for children under 11. These classes are to-day receiving the large number of children who were born in the year 1920. They are making a bulge in the size of the classes.

Mr. COVE: You must not take credit for the classes of over 11.

8.0 p.m.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I think what I have said in a sufficient answer to the Hon. Member. There has been a decrease of over 2,000 in classes of over 50 for these children of under 11. I admit that the figures showed a slight set-back last year, due to the fact that the 1920 children were passing up the junior schools, but that set-back has now been overcome. The hon. Member for Caerphilly, in his reference to the Prime Minister's speech, said in effect, that the pledges given at the last General Election had not been fulfilled. I do not see how it is possible to take up that attitude if it is realised that we have made a reduction of one-third in the number of these large classes, that we have sanctioned the tremendous programme of building expenditure which has been described, and if hon. Members also remember the figure given by me earlier in the Debate as to the increase of secondary school places. I gave figures to the Committee, to the effect that there had been an increase of about 32,000 in the places in grant-aided secondary schools—that is to say, an increase of 10 per cent.—and there has been an increase of 22 per cent. in the number of free places in those schools. Not
only, therefore, have we substantially added to secondary school accommodation, but we have also much more than proportionately increased the number of free places. We have been working steadily on the programme which the hon. Member for Caerphilly quoted, and have been providing more opportunities for the older children in those schools to get to secondary schools, central schools, or improved senior schools. It seemed to me, therefore, quite irrelevant for the hon. Member for Caerphilly to quote the figures for 1926 only as he did in regard to secondary school pupils. He devoted some time to the fact that the figures did not show so much advance in 1926 as they do to-day. Really, the Government must be judged on the record of the four and a half years in which my right hon. Friend has been responsible for his administration. It is irrelevant to go back and pick out a particular year and say that there was no progress in that year, and ignore the fact that, over a series of years, on the whole, there has been this very substantial improvement that I have mentioned.

Mr. JONES: The Noble Lady overlooks the fact that in the first year of her administration she got the benefit of the work of the previous administration. The boom that we tried to create in regard to the position of greater secondary school accommodation made itself manifest first in the year 1925.

Duchess of ATHOLL: That is quite possible, but it is not what is in question to-day. Hon. Members have been trying to make out that we have been doing nothing in these four and a half years, and I say it is impossible to maintain that position in view of the figures that I have just given. The hon. Member read an extract from the speech of the Prime Minister at Drury Lane. The Prime Minister shows that he recognises that we are not at the end of our pledges, because he repeats them all, with further pledges as to the improved opportunities for higher education which we hope to give by a progressive policy of reorganisation and by legislative changes which may be necessary to make that reorganisation more effective and to expedite it.
I turn to the question put to me by the hon. Member for the University of
Wales (Mr. E. Evans). He first complained that the full provisions of the Education Act of 1918 had not been carried out. He must, however, realise that it was the Government, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was the head, that said it was not possible at present to put those new Clauses into operation. Then the hon. Member accused us of having cut down the programmes of local education authorities.

Mr. EVANS: I admit that I made a mistake in what I said in regard to the three-year programmes being cut down by the Noble Lady. I had in mind the policy of a particular Circular. I think the Noble Lady was right in her interruption, and I ought to acknowledge that frankly.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I am much obliged to the hon. Member for his frank admission. He further asked me whether the Board had formed any estimate as to how long the reorganisation scheme would take. That is a question that no Government Department could be expected to answer, because, obviously, the speed with which a scheme of that kind is carried out does not depend only on the desires and activities of the Board. It is impossible to give a definite reply to the question further than to say that the Board have been consistently pressing the scheme of reorganisation on local authorities since the spring of 1925. They have further impressed on them the necessity for reorganisation in circulars sent out last year, and they are hoping to make proposals designed to facilitate and carry through further large measures of re organisation.
The hon. Member asked what effect reorganisation was having, or was likely to have, on the question of specialist teachers. I am very glad to be able to answer that at once. If he will visit any of the reorganised schools he will find that there has been an immediate effect. In these newly organised senior schools, or central schools, the tendency is for the teachers to teach a few subjects with which they are specially cognisant rather than to take all subjects, as teachers in the elementary schools so often have to do. Only yesterday I visited some reorganised
schools and found that the teachers were limited to two or three subjects, and it was impressed on me what a tremendous gain that was proving both to the teacher and to the pupil.
Finally, the hon. Member asked me at what time we hoped to raise the school age. I can only say that the policy of the Government is to provide the facilities, through reorganisation and improved buildings, which will gradually lead to more children staying at school, without naming a date at which there shall be universal compulsion. When I visited these reorganised schools yesterday, one of the first things I was told was what I have just said about the greater number of teachers who specialised in certain subjects. The next was the effect of reorganisation in keeping children longer at school. In their third year, they are given a certain option, and being allowed to exercise that option, naturally led to greater interest in their work. They were getting more advanced instruction in various subjects, and that led to their staying at school longer. I have already referred to what the hon. Member for Wellingborough said about capital expenditure. I will only add that when he compared what he believed to be our record on capital expenditure with pre-War expenditure—I do not really think he had the figures in his mind—

Mr. COVE: I quoted from your memorandum.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I think that describes the burden of his complaint. He said it was clear the Board had not been building at the normal rate of expansion. Will he remind himself that in those years before the War the population, and consequently the school population, was increasing at a rate at which it has not been increasing in the past few years. We have been carrying out this immense programme of approval of capital expenditure, in spite of the fact that we are living in days when the school population is either stationary or only very slightly increasing. The conditions therefore are quite different. School building was necessary in the years before the War, if only to provide for the steady increase in the school population. When new school buildings are erected to-day, it is
a definite gain, because it means that it is not merely done to meet an increase in the school population.

Mr. BROAD: Has the Noble Lady given consideration to the fact that we had for 10 years practically no building operation, between 1914 and 1924? Those arrears have to be overtaken.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Of course, that is one of the chief reasons why we have embarked on this great programme of capital expenditure. That is what amazed me when I heard the hon. Member for Wellingborough actually declare that our record of building expenditure was less than the programme of the War years. I think he excelled himself in that statement. As the hon. Member made a detailed comparison with the years before the War, I will say that if the Liberal Government in those three or four years had tackled the question of defective school premises in as courageous a manner as my Noble Friend has tackled it, we should not have had such heavy arrears to-day.

Mr. COVE: What about higher education?

Duchess of ATHOLL: The hon. Member knows as well as I do that no change of that kind could be brought about without legislation, and we cannot discuss that now. Then he spoke of the raising of the school age as the foundation stone of the Hadow policy. He seems to me to be quite incapable of realising the full implications of that policy. It consists in the first place of the break at 11, a policy upon which we were already acting. It further consists in grouping of the children over 11, in order to ensure better grading, which should mean the provision of a greater variety of types of course to suit varying types of ability, and the provision of the buildings in which these senior or central schools can be suitably and well housed.
When we have got the children of the country grouped together in suitable schools, with proper equipment, and the children have the opportunity to exercise the options I have already mentioned, then will be the time to talk about any compulsory raising of the school age. It may well be that there will be such a general recognition of the benefits of the
schools that no compulsion will be necessary. That would be, by general consent, the best solution of all. It is childish, in my view, to talk about raising the school age when we know that in so many areas the only result would be to cram more children into crowded classes and old buildings, buildings deficient in equipment, and where the grading that is so desirable at the adolescent stage cannot be carried out. Let the raising of the school age, voluntarily or compulsorily, be the coping stone, but not the foundation stone.
The Government, in their educational record, do not ask to be judged by words, or promises, or theories, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. We ask to be judged by our deeds, not only by the extent to which we have been able to fulfil the pledges given by the Prime Minister prior to the last General Election, but also by the measure in which we have been able to set on foot and bring to the notice of the local education authorities and of the country the need for a re-organisation of our elementary schools, a re-organisation which offers us a new hope of a higher and a better education for all the children of this country than has yet been within the reach of many of them. Rome was not built in a day. It is ludicrous to suggest that 25,000 large classes could be swept away in four and a half years, when we know how many other calls there have been on the attention of the local authorities, but we do submit that we have made very substantial headway in the fulfilment of the pledges given, and the Prime Minister has pledged himself anew to continue the working out of those pledges. We shall, therefore, submit our record to the electors within a few weeks with the clearest of consciences, and in the hope and the confidence that that record will be approved by the electors of this country.

Lord E. PERCY: In view of an arrangement which, I think, has been come to, I beg to ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC EDUCATION, SCOTLAND.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £3,423,485, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the
sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1930, for Public Education in Scotland, and for the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, including a Grant-in-Aid."—[NOTE.—£2,750,000 has been voted on account.]

Mr. D. M. COWAN: I take it that it is a fortunate circumstance that to-day we have had a discussion which includes education in England and Wales and education in Scotland, and it is another happy circumstance that the reply for the Board of Education for England and Wales has been given by a Scottish Member and one who has had a large experience of education in Scotland. It is true too, as has been already stated in this Debate, that no one political party can claim the sole interest in education. We believe that all parties have the subject really at heart, and while there may be some difference as to methods, there is none as to the objects which we seek to attain. It is to the interest of all parties that we should have an educated people. Before touching on one or two matters connected with the administration of Scottish education, I feel that it is my duty, as well as my privilege, to pay a tribute to the work which was accomplished by the late Secretary to the Scottish Education Department, Sir George MacDonald. Sir George brought to his high office not only great scholarship but great administrative ability, and he also brought qualities of courtesy, of sympathy, and of appreciation of the point of view of others which made for harmonious working; and he has done work during the last seven years which must stand as a lasting memorial to his holding of this high office. The policy which he consistently carried out will, we have every confidence, be carried out by his successor, to whom, in the name of all interested in Scottish education, I would offer a welcome to his high office and our best wishes for his happiness and success in it.
There are perennial questions connected with the administration of education alike in England and in Scotland. We have with us still, unfortunately, the question of accommodation. From the reports which have been issued, we learn that at least fair headway is being made in the way of providing suitable accommodation, but still there are, over the length and breadth of the land, far
too many buildings to which it is quite unfair, to ask children to go, and especially in the poorer quarters. Children who have little advantage in the way of healthy homes are really entitled to have the best schools which we can possibly provide for them. I hope, therefore, that, while I do not charge the officers of the Education Department with anything like remissness in this respect, they will put such pressure as they can upon all backward authorities in order that this first essential of real education may be provided everywhere. Then, too, we have the question of the size of classes. It is a matter of satisfaction that within the last year the number has been reduced from a possible 60 to a possible 50, but anyone who has had experience of dealing with classes of that size, with children from different social surroundings, of different mental capacity, and of different temperaments, will know that in many cases such a number as 50 is absolutely absurd; and, indeed, it is the wonder of people from many foreign countries that such a state of matters is allowed to persist in a country which has an educational tradition such as Scotland has.
Apart from those two things, there are certain gratifying features in connection with the administration of education in Scotland. First of all, I would put it that there has been a very real and serious attempt made to find a suitable curriculum for children between the ages of 12 and 14 or 15, children who are not naturally inclined to the more academic and bookish education which has been always the position in Scottish schools. It is too early yet to speak of the success which has attended those attempts, but we do know that there have been put into them great thought and great enthusiasm, on the part both of the officers of the Education Department and of the teachers who are engaged in that particular work.
A second matter which also gives us reason for gratification is the constant and, I believe, successful attempt to link up day school continuation classes with the Universities, central institutions and technical colleges. No system can be considered satisfactory in which there is a definite break, and it is all to the good that there has been a systematic attempt made to ensure that it will be possible
for children to go from the earlier stages to a completed course in one of the higher educational institutions. In reading the Report issued by the Privy Council, I was specially pleased to note that the number of students over the age of 18 attending the continuation classes was equal to the number of those under 18. It is to the credit of the country and to the students themselves that there should be such a large proportion who are pursuing, often under difficult circumstances, the knowledge which will enable them better to fulfil their duties both in their own occupation and as citizens.
One matter, however, in which very much more ought to be done is the provision of means of recreation for our children. Many of our city schools have nothing more for a playground than a few square yards of concrete, and at home the children have little more than a back court in which to play. I believe that the next great movement in education must be along the lines of care for the physical well-being of our children. That is a matter which, in my view, has been far too long neglected. I am not complaining that nothing has been done, because within recent years a great deal has been done, but we have neglected this aspect of education so long that it should now receive more than a proportionate share of attention. I know that the Secretary of State is an open-air man, and that his sympathy is with this movement to provide playing fields; I am certain also that the Under-Secretary, whose professional knowledge must make him fully aware of the many defects attending our educational system, will in this respect be whole-heartedly with those who want to provide better means, it is an advantage that our administrative bodies in this country are linked up so that in this provision of housing schemes care will be taken that adequate grounds are provided for recreative purposes both for young and old.
The features which I have mentioned are features in administration which must give us all satisfaction. Apart from these, there are two developments in Scotland upon which the country is to be congratulated. We have heard from the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Sir M. Conway) that he would like to see the day when every
teacher was a graduate. That is an aspiration which we have long cherished in Scotland, and it is a gratifying fact that it now seems to be very nearly within the scope of realisation. At the present time, we admit to the training colleges each year something like 1,200 or 1,300, and of these this year the proportion is something like 11 graduates to two non-graduates, so that in a very short time we believe that in Scotland no one will be admitted to the teaching profession who is not a graduate, or does not hold some equivalent qualification.
The second matter is more outwith the school question, but it has a very important bearing. Samuel Johnson is reported to have said that all that could be known about education or teaching was already known. That is one of the foolish sayings which foolish people take for wisdom. We know better than that, and I am sure that the Under-Secretary knows better, for we not only do not know all about the body, but we know still less about the mind. In recent developments in science, no more marked progress has been made than in the comparatively new science of psychology and allied subjects. It is therefore a matter of distinct gratification that we have had set up recently in Scotland a Research Committee. This committee receives its income in equal parts from the teaching-profession and from the school authorities. For the first year, it had at its disposal something like £1,500, and it has formed a committee of representatives of these two bodies and of the universities, of technical colleges, and the medical profession. In the matter of research we have been backward for a long period. We have been living somewhat on our traditions, and it is all to the good that we should have this enthusiastic body devoting itself to the study of educational methods and the child's mind. The object of the committee will not only be to provide a good normal course for the normal child, but to find out, if it can, wherein the backward child can be specially helped. It would be impossible for the Education Department to become a direct partner to this Research Committee, because it might be thought that they would be bound by the findings of the committee, and not even its worst opponent would like to bind the Scottish Education Department to anything.
These two distinct departures or achievements with regard to Scottish education, namely, the improvement of the status of the teacher and the inquiry into educational methods and possible improvements, are matters on which the Scottish Education Department and the Scottish people are to be congratulated.
There is the other stock question of the raising of the school age, and I am not going to enter into any of the arguments in favour of that movement. They are known to everyone, and it is common knowledge that the three parties are generally agreed that, could the thing be done, it would and should be done. In the discussion on the English Estimates, it was hardly permissible to enter into this question because it would involve legislation; but we are under no such difficulty in discussing the Scottish Estimates, because we have already legislation which allows it to be done. The Secretary of State for Scotland has only to name a particular day, and from that day every Scottish child would be required to stay at school until the age of 15. I appreciate what the Noble Lady said, that it would be quite impossible to bring the raising of the age into operation all at once, for there might not be the accommodation or the teachers; there would also be other requirements which would first need to be met. But I would ask the Under-secretary if he can give us, on behalf of the Government, some undertaking that a request will be made to the authorities to show what is required to be done in order that this most beneficent provision may be put into operation. It is no good saying that it cannot be done now. We want information which will give us some idea when it can be done. Otherwise, it will be left to the Liberal party in the next Government to put this into operation. Those are some of the points which strike one about our Scottish administration.
We are tempted to ask "In what does it all result?" The work of the schools is open to criticism from many quarters, much of it not well-founded criticism. We are told that in the old days children were better educated, were better mannered and had many qualities which are now so common among children. If those old days were so good and the schools were so good and the teachers
were so good one is tempted to ask why the generation which had all those advantages did not turn out to be a good deal better than they have proved to be. But I would venture to say, from a fairly long experience that the children of to-day are stronger physically, are better trained mentally and are much better mannered, on the whole, than were the children of a previous generation. We cannot apply to young folk of the present day the standards which were current years ago. Manners and customs have changed. The young people of to-day have a confidence in themselves and a self-reliance which were not possible to those of an older generation, and while these things may not always give us cause for complacency I do think they give us reason to go forward in the faith and hope that the efforts made for the better instruction and care of our children will not Be without their full reward.

Mr. WESTWOOD: I think the situation in which we find ourselves is an amazing one. In regard to English education, we had a statement from the Minister for Education, but it is apparent that as regards Scottish education we shall have to wait until the discussion has almost reached its close before we hare a statement from the Under-Secretary of State, who, I understand, is deputising this evening for the Secretary of State. That is most unfair to us. We are entitled to have a statement from the representative of the Government as to the work which is being done. I expected the Under-Secretary would give us such a statement, and I would give way now to allow him to make it, as I really want to hear what he has to say about the work of the Government during the last four and a half years, particularly after the promises that are being made, the pledges that were given previously and the claims made by even the Prime Minister himself as to educational progress in Scotland. Apparently the Under-Secretary is not going to accept the invitation.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Major Elliot): I am very sorry if there has been any misunderstanding on the point, but I understood that the Vote was asked for by the Liberal party, and that they would make a statement in criticism of the
Government, after which I should reply to any points raised. I certainly had no information from those hon. Members that they desired that a statement should be made by the Government at an early stage of the Debate. I am sorry if there has been any misunderstanding, but that was my impression as to the course the Debate was to follow.

Mr. WESTWOOD: After the explanation made by the Under-Secretary it seems that the Liberal party must bear the responsibility for arranging for the Minister of Education to outline the work done in England but making no arrangement to get a similar statement in respect of education in Scotland. I want at the outset to compliment the Department and also the education authorities in Scotland upon having carried out so successfully the work started by the Labour Government in 1924. I notice that in a report which has been issued particular credit is being taken for reducing the size of the classes from 60 to a maximum of 50. I know that the Prime Minister in a speech he made recently, took all the credit that was going for that reduction in the size of classes in Scotland. That credit is not due to the Conservative party, however, but to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. W. Adamson) who, when he was Secretary of State for Scotland, directed the Department to issue instructions to the various education authorities in Scotland giving them four years' notice that by a given date, September, 1928, classes with a maximum of 60 must be reduced to 50.
I cannot say that I altogether agree with what the representative of the Scottish Universities (Mr. Cowan) said about a general reduction in the size of classes. I would be prepared to agree to the size of classes at the top of the school remaining as they are, for a time, if the size of the classes in the infants' department were cut down. I know there are those associated with the administration of education who are always talking about reducing the size of the classes at the top of the school, but after giving this matter careful consideration I believe that the teaching profession meet with the greatest difficulties arising from too large classes when imparting the foundations of education, those foundations
having to be laid in the infants department. I would far rather see the classes at the head of the school remaining with the present maximum and classes of, say, 30 or 35 in the infants' departments. I merely mention that because I know that a number of teachers' representatives stress the general reduction of classes.

Mr. COWAN: I think my hon. Friend is mistaken. We do not want to cut down classes which are already small enough, but we do want to cut down all classes of 50 or thereabouts.

Mr. WESTWOOD: Now that we have got a maximum of 50 fixed so far as elementary pupils are concerned, I am making a special appeal for a further reduction, but I say that rather than have a reduction to 35 in the senior or advanced division let us have a cut almost of a half, certainly a cut of one-third, in the infants' department.

Mr. COWAN: I quite agree.

Mr. WESTWOOD: The next question I want to deal with is that of the qualifying examinations. I know the Department have been issuing instructions to try to cut out, as far as possible, most of the qualifying examinations which take place in our schools. I believe we have to give more and more responsibility to our teachers in regard to the advancement of pupils in the classes, but I am not one who believes that the teaching profession is yet perfect enough to have full responsibility in connection with the transfer from elementary or primary departments to advanced division departments, but I believe that something has got to take the place as speedily as possible of the present qualifying examination. I want to quote the opinion of a headmaster in the County of Fife who, speaking for the teaching profession against the present system of qualifying examination, pointed out,
That the effect of that system was injurious. If a teacher's work and the efficiency of a school are to be judged on the basis of the passes in the qualifying examination then you are in danger of getting a type of education that is of comparatively little value.
Under the present system of preparing children between the ages of 11 and 12 for the qualifying examination their minds are merely being speeded up for the purpose of acquiring the necessary
special knowledge. I have been told of cases where pupils secured 190 marks out of a possible 200 in a qualifying examination and yet in the secondary schools they were miserable failures. Great trouble is taken preparing the children to pass the qualifying examination, but very often they do not benefit by the higher instruction which the local authorities are prepared to give them. The headmaster to whom I have alluded gave a typical illustration of what happens so far as testing the children or preparing them for a qualifying examination is concerned. He mentioned the case of a school where a very successful lesson in history was being given to a qualifying class by well selected material, graphic material and pictorial illustrations, and the past had been made to live, a sense of contact with remote realities had been given and curiosity had been aroused. But the qualifying examination was imminent and although the teacher had aroused the real intelligence of the children in the history they had learned and had created in them a desire by asking questions to get more of the real education which had stirred up their imagination, the teacher had to set all that aside in order to prepare those children for a qualifying examination.
Therefore, instead of making a real live class anxious and desirous of getting education, with no desire to leave school, that teacher, knowing the type of question usually put at qualifying examinations, dealt with "The Petition of Right" and "The Bill of Rights" and other constitutional questions, had to drop the interesting subjects and give this "dry as dust" instruction to the children. Consequently their real interest was killed. If we want to get a really good system of education then we must stop this system of qualifying examination. Why should a child always possess a fear of qualifying examinations? I remember in days gone by that the children used to be spruced up and specially dressed for examination. They were always afraid of making mistakes, and because of that fear they generally made 10 times more mistakes than they would have done if they had not known that they were being examined. We must get rid of this system and there should be some system substituted of testing the children
over a period of three or four months, and as a result of that test the children should be passed from our primary schools to the secondary schools. In that way better material could be passed on to the secondary schools than is being sent at the present time.
I hope the Education Department will go on with this good work. I know that they are placing no obstacles in the way in connection with these matters. When I first suggested a new system of centralisation they said it was a scheme of "a young man in a hurry," but the scheme of "the young man in a hurry" is now being broadcast throughout Scotland as the ideal system. I hope the Education Department will go on encouraging the education authorities to get rid at the earliest possible moment of the qualifying examination, and adopt in its stead a new system which will test the ability of the children instead of the present system which may ultimately destroy the real initiative and the real ability of many of our children. I am sure that the system I suggest would pass on the better material into the higher division and secondary schools.
At the present moment, it is merely as a result of the qualifying or control examinations that our children are passed on to the advanced division schools or secondary schools. I would like to see the suggestion of the Hadow Committee applied so far as Scotland is concerned. The English Education Department have issued a pamphlet entitled, "The New Prospect in Education." This is to be found in the English Report on page 8, where they point out that, instead of the qualifying examinations being the test for the passing of the children to the advanced division school or the secondary school, we ought to have in England a clean cut at 11 plus. So far as the Scottish system is concerned we ought to go in for a clean cut at the age of 12 or 12 plus when the transfer should take place. I think that at the age of 12 years and three months education of all our children should be passed on from the elementary schools to one or other of our advanced division schools. When you get older children being kept back amongst the younger children, they feel their inferiority, and consequently they do not make the progress they would
be likely to make if they got another type of education.
It does not follow that a boy or a girl who fails to reach the necessary standard in connection with arithmetic or English or mathematics, is not as clever a child in some other direction as the other children. Therefore, there ought to be a clean cut at the age of 12 years and three months, and the children should be passed to the advanced education centres where they can get the education best suited to their capacity. To accomplish this it will be necessary to do more and more in connection with centralisation so far as the advanced division schools are concerned. I find that the county to which I have the honour to belong and is held up for the approval of the rest of Scotland because of the success which has attended its efforts with regard to the centralisation of the advanced schools. If that policy were pursued still more widely, I am sure there would be less of the difficulties which are being met with by our various authorities at the present time.
I think it would be a good thing if the Education Department could set aside one or two individuals to meet the parents in different parts of Scotland in order to explain to them how they are dealing with this question of centralisation. Under this system more courses are open to the pupils, and it costs the ratepayers less. In the county of Fife, where centralisation has been a great success, very few of the parents would seek to go back to when they had the advanced division at the head of each separate school. I am sure the ratepayers there would not go back to the old system because the administrators have realised that it is a cheaper and more efficient system and that it is better from an educational point of view to have the schemes that have been given effect to in the county of Fife. Here, again, I would plead with the Education Department and those responsible for educational administration in Scotland that they should go in for more and more work in connection with schemes of centralisation, because they are all in the interests of education, of efficiency, and of economy.
I now come to a point which was raised by the hon. Member for the Scottish
Universities (Mr. Cowan), namely, the raising of the school age. Here no legislation is required so far as Scotland is concerned; it is merely a question of naming the day. I agree that, as has already been said, if you were merely to state that three months hence the school age would be raised to 15, it might place the education authorities in difficulties, but the present Tory Government received a lesson from Labour administrators and legislators in 1924, when four years' notice was given with regard to the reduction of classes. Can we have a statement from the Under-Secretary to-night as to when it is proposed to name the appointed day for raising the school age in Scotland? I submit that two years from now would be the very best date, because then, as a result of the reduction in the birth rate during the War years, there will be sufficient available accommodation in Scotland to meet the requirements in 1931 or 1932.
With regard to the training of teachers, to which, I see, special reference is made in the Report. I would ask the Under-Secretary to state, when he comes to reply, if he can justify curtailing the number of entrants without giving notice to the parents and to the pupils. The various authorities in Scotland have protested most vigorously against what happened 12 months ago, when, without any previous notice, those who were receiving in our secondary schools preliminary training for the teaching profession got word that there were no places for them. There was a desire to make the teaching profession one for graduates only, but, while graduation may be desirable so far as teaching generally is concerned, there can be no justification for demanding that all teachers should be graduates, particularly those engaged in teaching infant children in our schools. Surely, if there is to be a curtailment of the number of entrants to the teaching profession, it is only just to the education authorities, to the parents, and also to those who have started on a secondary course leading to the teaching profession, that at least they should receive two years' notice that the number of entrants to that profession is going to be curtailed.
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I also want to make a special appeal for the development of adult education. We have made some progress during the last two or three years, but more encouragement
ought to be given to our education authorities, and, so far as some of them are concerned, more driving force is required from the Department to compel them to carry out their duties, particularly in connection with the new ideas as regards adult education. I now come to the relationship between agricultural education and general education. A plea was made, either by the Secretary of State for Scotland or by the Under-Secretary, during the passage of the Local Government (Scotland) Bill, that there was no relationship at the moment between agricultural education on the one hand and the work of the education authorities on the other. I, for one, have a very serious complaint to make against the Secretary of State for having given us no encouragement in one county where we were prepared to expend no less than £5,000 for the development of agricultural education. We approached the Secretary of State. If I remember rightly, I have approached him three times on behalf of that authority, but up to the present we have received no encouragement in regard to the development of agricultural education. Therefore, the responsibility for agricultural education being the Cinderella of the various departments connected with education does not rest altogether on the education authorities; it is mainly due to the action of the Secretary of State himself in the past.
I hope that, despite the fact that in 12 months time we may have a new body of administrators in education, they will go on with the work which the existing education authorities have been doing. Good as was the work done by the late Secretary for Education. I trust that his successor in Office will still carry on that work. I know that he has the good will of the education authorities and of the administrators in Scotland, and there are many associated with educational administration who will look for the same good will from him when they are carrying on their experiments which have proved to be so successful. We hope that the Scottish Education Department under its new head will allow still further experiments to be carried out, and that, if they are successful, as past experiments have been, they will be passed on to other authorities, with
the object of improving education in Scotland.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I want to raise a point which particularly concerns the question of school accommodation in the City of Glasgow. I do not know if the Under-Secretary received a note, but I left a note for his chief saying that I intended to raise this now time-honoured question—

Major ELLIOT indicated assent.

Mr. BUCHANAN: For the last three or four years I have been raising the question of school accommodation, particularly on the South Side of Glasgow, with a certain degree of success, and to-day I return to the same subject. With regard to the congratulations offered by the hon. Member for Peebles (Mr. Westwood) to the new Permanent Secretary, and his promise of support from the education authorities, while I do not want to be taken as disagreeing with my hon. Friend, whose knowledge of educational matters is wider and greater than mine, I would say that, if the new Permanent Secretary is going to pursue a really progressive policy, if he is going to make advances in educational ideas, I am afraid, from my own knowledge of education, that he will not have very much support. My knowledge of education is confined to the West of Scotland, and I am sorry to say that almost all the authorities there are dominated and controlled by reaction from one end of the year to the other. I hope that the new Permanent Secretary is going to be much more resourceful and bold in his educational methods than, possibly, those authorities would desire him to be.
I want to point out to the Under-Secretary of State that there is a very grave omission from his Report. The hon. Member for Peebles was perfectly right in his plea for a reduction of the size, particularly, of infant classes. The large and, indeed, unwieldy size of the classes, and particularly the infants' classes, in our elementary schools throughout Scotland, is shocking and disgraceful; but the point that I want particularly to raise is that, so far as I can see, there is no mention in the Report of what I think is the most important educational development of recent years, namely, the development of the nursery school.
It is a grave and serious omission from this report. To think that this is the latest and perhaps the greatest development—and to me, at least, it is one of the biggest experiments taking place—in education in Britain, and we cannot have a paragraph in the report telling us how many nursery schools there are and how many new nursery schools have been started! I read the English report, and in that there was at least some reference to this new development. I say, frankly, that, as far as we are concerned in Scotland, there is no doubt that we lag far behind in this new and important development of nursery schools. I want to ask the Under-Secretary of State to see if he cannot, along with his new permanent Secretary, awaken a new activity in regard to the establishment of nursery schools in Scotland. There ought to be more driving force behind this matter than hitherto has been the case.
I notice that in the report of the Education Department there is a paragraph dealing with playing fields. When we were boys the streets of the City of Glasgow were to some extent playing grounds, but in recent years the development of motor transport has deprived the children of the streets as "playing fields." One anxiety constantly arising in the City of Glasgow, with its terrible tenement dwellings, is the fact that there is no playing accommodation, especially for children under five years of age. This was not so serious 10, 15, or 20 years ago before the coming and development of motor transport. Slow going traffic had not the same dangers to the children, but now with the speedy motor car the side street in Glasgow has largely disappeared. The only playing places for the children which formerly held sway have now been taken from them, and the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary ought to state what the Government have done and what they intend to do in regard to providing nursery schools for the children throughout Scotland. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State and those associated with him in education who are constantly boasting to us of our advanced ideas of education in Scotland will not allow Scotland to lag behind England in this matter, but will rather supply the driving force and make Scotland in
this matter even more advanced than is the case across the border.
I turn from that to a subject which I have made almost a hardly annual, namely, the provision of school accommodation, particularly on the south side of Glasgow. The provision of school accommodation in Glasgow is taking on a colour which I, to some extent, deplore. Some time ago, in an answer which I received from him, the Secretary of State for Scotland stated that higher grade schools were being provided in certain parts of the City of Glasgow. It must here be noted that in almost every case new higher grade schools are being provided in areas where new housing accommodation is also being provided. It may be said by the Under-Secretary of State, "Oh, you have to provide schools for the children in your new areas." We have this position. Certain classes of our population can get subsidised houses, homes in a good, decent, wholesome locality, and now the education authorities come along and give them the best schools with the best equipment and the best staffs. On the other hand, the poor areas, where the school accommodation is even more important than it is in those well-to-do areas, are being, comparatively speaking, starved for the want of new school accommodation.
I represent the most thickly populated Division of Glasgow, and in my Division there is not a single higher grade school provided. Children have to go a considerable distance in order to attend the higher grade school. In the Pollok Division, which is represented by the Secretary of State for Scotland, there are at least three or four higher grade schools. Why? Because there you have the well-to-do population. To-day, we have a Scottish Education Department, instead of turning its attention to the poorer localities where schools are much more required, spending a great deal of time and money in the development of schools in areas where schools are not so much needed. Schools ought to be provided first in areas where the population is the poorest and not in the areas where the population is better off.
I want to call attention to one particular school, known as the Greenside or Clarence Street School. Some time ago, I raised the question of this school constantly in this House with the result that
the Secretary of State for Scotland agreed to visit the school. As a result of that visit, even he, perhaps the most outstanding example of reaction in this House, was compelled to admit that the school was absolutely of no use as a modern school for the education of children. He came to the conclusion that the school must be closed. After the lapse of some little time all the pupils were taken from that school and gradually, by one means or another, they were transferred to other schools in the area. I thought that I had accomplished something. As I have stated, nobody in the House could make a defence of the school. It was situated by the side of the main railway line from Glasgow to Kilmarnock and by the side of stables and motor garages. It had no playground. It was an indefensible school from every possible standpoint.
What do I find now? I find that this school, condemned a year or two ago by the Secretary of State for Scotland as unfit for the education of children, has been re-opened. Previously, it was what we called a Protestant school. Now, however, the Secretary of State for Scotland, who condemned the use of the school for Protestants, allows Catholics to go there and be taught.
I say that this is a shocking state of affairs. If this was an unjustifiable school for Protestants, it is equally an unjustifiable school for Catholics. Here we have a school in the south of the city of Glasgow, condemned for public use by the Secretary of State for Scotland and ordered to be closed, re-opened for the education of another section of children. If the school was not good enough in the first place it certainly ought not to be good enough in the second place, and it ought to be disposed of as a school altogether. I shall be told that the Catholic school in the immediate neighbourhood is overcrowded and that this transfer must take place. What was there to hinder the local education authority from building a new school long ago? They know of the increase in the number of children attending the school. It is no use saying that they could not get ground. In the division, I have seen all manner of alterations taking place, and I have seen banks and cinemas being built. I am certain that if this school had been in Pollok,
which is represented by the Secretary of State for Scotland, a new building would have been put up and every effort would have been made to provide the new school. The Under-Secretary ought to take up the matter with the Glasgow education authority and insist that as the school has been closed for one set of children it is intolerable that it should be opened for another set. He ought to intervene to get the school closed entirely and to have at least a temporary school built for the accommodation of the children, who ought to be taught in a school which possesses decent facilities and adequate accommodation.
I called the attention of the Glasgow education authority, recently, to the provision of clinics in the south side of Glasgow. I visited a school in my Division, known as Gorbals School, and I found that children with all kinds of diseases were taken there. The clinic was situated on the third storey of the building. Children suffering from all kinds of trouble were huddled together in the clinic, and next door a teacher was vainly trying to teach children whilst constant shuffling and talking was going on outside by children who wanted to attend the clinic. Such a condition of things would not be tolerated in any well-to-do school. A clinic for dealing with skin diseases and other diseases ought to be separate from the ordinary school. We hear a great deal about vaccination against small-pox and the need of keeping free from contamination. What could be worse than to bring children suffering from diseases into a school where children are there who are free from such diseases? The clinic ought to be outside a school where children are attending for elementary education. In this case, lack of accommodation cannot be pleaded. Adjacent to the school there are empty houses of considerable size which could have been purchased and would have made excellent places for the establishment of the clinic. I find that every form of economy is exercised in regard to comparatively poor areas, but when one turns to Moss Park, represented by the Secretary of State, one finds there a school, beautiful and extensive, and containing every provision that money can ensure to make it a first class school. In the case of a clinic in a poorer district, a cheeseparing policy takes place which passes my comprehension. The clinic ought to be
established away from the ordinary school, in proper surroundings and carried out in a decent manner. I hope that the Under-Secretary will have an inquiry made and will see that something is done to remedy matters.

Mr. STEPHEN: There is nothing in this Report of a very startling nature. It is a record of a certain amount of advance, and I have been interested to hear hon. Members dealing with the various topics. Reference was made, some time ago, to the state of education in Scotland by Professor Whittaker and Lord Sands. These individuals took up the position that education in Scotland to-day was not to be compared with the education in their time. They evidently thought that children in our schools to-day or the generation of children that has passed out are somewhat lacking in ability as compared with the previous generation. I do not see anything, from my experience in connection with education in Scotland, to bear out that statement. Scottish schools at the present time are producing as good results as the schools have produced in days gone by. Our schools to-day in many characteristics that are good are an improvement upon the past, and many of the features of school life of to-day that are not progressive are due to some extent to the stricter discipline that has produced a certain rigidity of mind and a certain public opinion which does not make possible that development of experiments in education which educationists would like to see.
Anyone looking through the Report will come to the conclusion that one of the weaknesses in the present administration is that there have not been sufficient experiments in connection with education in our Scottish schools. The teachers who would like very much to have greater opportunities of teaching their classes apart from the stiffness that is introduced or the working to a general plan. The chiefs of the Department and those associated with them in the administration would, no doubt, also like a greater amount of flexibility in connection with courses, both in the elementary schools and in the advanced and secondary schools. One of the greatest difficulties in the way of providing for greater flexibility is due to the fact that
public opinion might on many occasions be somewhat unwilling to allow for this greater amount of experiment. I would suggest to the Under-Secretary and the permanent officials that the time has come when in many schools there should be an attempt made to have many of the newer educational improvements on various points tried out, and the teachers given a greater amount of liberty than they have at the present time.
I am not so much making a complaint on that score as making a suggestion that one of the weaknesses that is occurring in Scotland is that, with this definite time-table of work, there is not sufficient opportunity for teachers with personality and with new ideas to try out those new ideas and to allow scholars under their care to have full advantage of their personalities. I simply make reference to that, because for some time in the newspapers there has seemed to be so much general disposition to believe that Lord Sands was right in his conclusion with regard to education. From my own experience, I am quite convinced that the administration to-day is just as successful as it ever was in running our Scottish educational system, and that the product of our schools to-day will compare with that of any time. In my days as a Minister of the United Free Churches of Scotland I had an opportunity of comparing the children in my Sunday schools with those of a corresponding age in my own time. I also had an opportunity, as a teacher before I was elected to this House, of comparing the ability and development of the children in the schools in which I was teaching, with children with whom I had been educated myself in days gone by. It seemed to me that on the whole the children who were under my care were cleverer than I myself was or the children with whom I had been educated.
Another question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) was that of school clinics. These clinics are often part of or alongside the school buildings. I wonder if an attempt should not be made to have these clinics in separate buildings away from the school buildings altogether? Take the case of children who go for examination because of a report that they are probably mentally deficient. There is one case which I have in mind in which
a parent bitterly complained that when her child was going in to see the doctor there were many other children going in to the ordinary school at the same time. Noticing these children going in for examination these schoolchildren were overheard by one such little boy to say "Those are the dafts." I do not think that is a satisfactory position, and I would suggest that the Department should take into consideration the location of clinics in order that we may have the children and their parents going there with greater confidence than is the case at the present time. Again, without seeking to be unduly critical with regard to the development which has taken place in this connection, I would suggest it is of importance that every parent, and every child as well, should feel that in going to the clinic they are going to have a great advantage accruing to them, and that the community is seeking in this way to make better opportunities possible for them in the future.
Another point with which I wish to deal is the question of the bursary system in connection with education in Scotland. I feel that while a great deal has been done, there is need for ever so much more. There are those bursaries that are given in connection with the maintenance of children at school in order that they may take a higher course of instruction. There is also the bursary system in the provision made for young people who have passed through the schools and who are going to the universities or colleges. I do not think our bursary is anything like sufficiently generous yet. The maintenance grants to the children to enable them to continue their instruction should be very largely increased. If it could be said that Scottish education is deteriorating one of the reasons would be that there was not sufficient nutrition. I very much liked that feature of the address given by the Secretary of State for Scotland in connection with the Educational Institute of Scotland in which he dealt with the need for increased attention being paid to the physical development of the child. Whether it is for physical or mental development, I believe it is very important that full attention should be given to the feeding of the child. Food, clothing and shelter are the three elements which are the basis of any
really sound educational system. We have got to see that there shall be more money going into the working-class homes in order that the children in those homes shall have more food, better food, better homes and everything in the way of clothing that is necessary.
I would point out to the Under-Secretary that while in schools now there is an attempt made to give them so much to spend on a curriculum of games, and a certain amount of provision is made, there is not sufficient provision made in regard to the other things which are necessary for playing these games. Every child who is going to take part in games such as football should have football boots and uniforms. One of the things which strikes me in walking through one of the English parks where games are provided is the fact that so many children in this country seem to be able to get uniforms in so much larger numbers than is the case in Scotland. Scotland may win international football against the best that England can produce, but, at the same time, I think the educational administration and the Department itself should encourage the local authorities not only to provide the bare minimum with regard to games which are becoming a feature of school life, but also the clothes that are necessary for taking part fully in those games and making the most out of them.
Then with regard to the condition of our schools. The hon. Member for Gorbals has drawn attention to a school in his own division. I represent a fairly mixed division, one part of which is fairly well to do. The schools in that part are in a much better condition than those in the other part, which is not so well to do. In the Dennison Ward the schools are in a much better condition than those in the Mile End Ward. The working class districts are very smoky as a rule and more coats of paint might be used on the schools in these areas. In many of the older buildings in the industrial districts a great deal might be done to make the classrooms more inviting. The contrast in many of the schools in Glasgow in this respect is astonishing. Money should be spent in order to ensure that children in these poorer districts are not in an inferior position as compared with children in other districts. There is one point in connection with bursaries which I forgot
to mention. Some of the students obtain from the Glasgow Education authority a sum of about £18 or £20 a year in order to enable them to go to the University. That is a comparatively small amount for any young person of 18 or 19 years of age to receive for maintenance, and these grants to pupils at day schools to allow them to continue their education and to those pupils who go to the University should be very much on the level of the average rate of wages paid to young persons about the same age who pass into the workshops. That is of the utmost importance.
The hon. Member for Peebles (Mr. Westwood) suggested that there should be a definite date fixed for the raising of the school age to 15. There will be general agreement with him in that respect, but it is absolutely essential that in connection with the raising of the school age there should be adequate maintenance grants for all children. It is the duty of the State to make adequate provision for every child, and if we could get adequate maintenance grants I believe that there would be a great development in our secondary education. In this Report there is an obvious feeling that there is so much waste at the end of the school curriculum. This is not because the people of Scotland are not interested in education or that the children themselves would not like to have an opportunity of continuing their education. It is all due to the fact that there is to-day so much poverty in the home that the children feel that it is their duty to go out and help their parents, and the parents themselves feel that they are in such a position that they must have the income which can be earned by the child. Look at what occurred in the boom years at the end of the War, when wages were so much higher. During that period the children from many homes in working-class districts, where poverty in previous times had been greatest, were sent to the secondary school and had the advantage of a, secondary education, but when the period of boom passed and wages fell, when conditions became so difficult and the volume of unemployment spread, there came a lessening of the demand for secondary education by these people. The only way by which our children will
be able to finish their education and take full advantage of the opportunities for higher education is to see that they are put in possession of a sufficient income.
I am not very much enamoured of the advanced course, and I hope the Under-Secretary of State will tell us, when he replies to the Debate, what is the cost of educating a child in the advanced course, and also give us the comparative figure for educating a child in the secondary course. If I find that the cost of education in the advanced course is as great as the cost of education in the secondary course, I shall have much more faith in the advanced course than I have, but I am convinced that that is not the case, and that one of the reasons for the introduction of the advanced course is the fact that it was felt that by this means a considerable saving would be made; so many of the children would not complete the three years' course and the five years' course and, therefore, this advanced course was introduced because it would be cheaper, and would give the child something in the nature of advanced education. I had the privilege of seeing one of the new advanced schools in Stirling the other day, and I frankly say that I have nothing but praise for it. They have a very fine building, and both staff and scholars were very enthusiastic about it, and felt that their surroundings and opportunities were good.
One has the feeling that if there were similar institutions on the same scale throughout the country, and that if the teachers in the advanced course were paid on the same scale as teachers in the secondary schools, there would be a greater measure of satisfaction. One thing can be said for the advanced course schools, and that is that they are some improvement on the old supplementary course which was very largely a waste of time. The cleverer children got through the ordinary elementary course by the age of about 12, and then for two years, when taking the supplementary course, they were very much marking time, going over a lot of things that had been gone over before and getting slack and indifferent. While the advance course is a certain improvement on the supplementary course I do not think it compares with the intermediate course of the secondary school, and I shall not be
content until I see it made an improvement on the intermediate course.
As I have said, I have not risen in any hypercritical mood. On the whole I think there is a good spirit in connection with the administration of the educational system of Scotland; there is a desire to do all that is best on behalf of the scholars, and people of the different parties are very much alive to the need for making the most of the educational opportunities available. I hope that in the coming year we shall see great advances made. Now that we have got to the 50 class I hope it is not to be assumed that we have attained to perfection, but that the Department will look to a constant reduction of the numbers in classes for many years to come. Think of a teacher taking 50 pupils and of how little opportunity there is of giving what is best in that teacher to those 50 children! Different gifts are embodied in those children, and I do not believe that you can bring the best out of them when one teacher is in control of so many. I hope that the Department will set before itself in the next two years a reduction to 45, so that the classes of the elementary school will compare in numbers with the classes of the secondary school.
There is possibility of great development. There is no doubt as to teachers being available, for many are unemployed. Could the Department not do now what was said to be impossible in 1924? The Permanent Secretary to the Department assured us then that if the three years course were adopted there would not be a sufficient number of teachers. There are sufficient teachers unemployed to-day to suggest that we have again reached the stage when we can make developments in connection with the training of teachers. I hope the Department will go forward boldly, prepared to spend money and more money, and more money, on maintenance grants and in giving to the children all that is best in educational opportunities. Some children have hundreds of pounds per annum spent on their education alone. I say that every child in the country is entitled to an equal education, and I hope that the Scottish Education Department will make the realisation of that ideal its object in the future.

Mr. JOHNSTON: I would like in a word or two to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) has said as to the necessity of adequate maintenance grants. Everyone in this House, every educationist, urges the raising of the school age as speedily as possible to 15 years. The reason why there has been hesitation in carrying this change into effect is that vast masses of our people are in such poverty that when a child reaches the age of 14 it is a terrible struggle, particularly if that child happens to be the eldest child of a family, to keep it at school any longer. Surely, after years of the experience of exemption committees, and reports from chairmen and members of exemption committees, the Department of the Government might have been taking the necessary steps to provide adequate maintenance grants, so that working-class children should not be robbed of the last and most useful year in their educational life. It is not a matter of party politics. Anyone who has been a member of an exemption committee of an education authority will agree that it is absolutely heart-rending to hear the pitiful tales told by men and women who, while anxiously desirous of giving their children a decent education, are compelled by sheer poverty to take their children from school and to send them to a blind-alley occupation, to stratify the classes and to hand on the poverty which they have inherited from their parents. Every educationist knows of such cases.
Instead of this House uttering pious exclamations of hope that we shall soon see the age limit reached, it should realise that the necessary first step is the provision of adequate maintenance grants. I believe that in many directions the Education Department in Scotland is making marked improvements but, like the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), I regret that the Government seem to be so little in accord with the idea of nursery schools that no mention of it is made in this report—and that despite the fact that the Prime Minister made kindly and eulogistic references to the work of Miss Margaret McMillan. Yet after all these years we find a Government Department making no mention whatever in a report of this kind of nursery schools, What is said in the report regarding the health of the
school children is, in some respects, amazing. It is admitted that over 6 per cent. of the school children examined by the school medical officers are below the average in nutrition. Apart from medical terms, that means that the children are suffering from hunger. What does the Department propose to do with these insufficiently fed children? During the past 10 years they have gone back in this respect, because 10 years ago there was a better system for the feeding of school children than there is now. Then the onus was on the education authority, but now the education authority only steps in when private charity has failed. Even then they make arrangements with the Poor Law authorities, and it is only as a last resort that the education authority, appointed to deal with the education of the child, comes in to see that the child is in a fit physical condition to receive the education that is provided.
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The hon. Member for Camlachie raised the question of the cost and he differentiated between the cost of educating the secondary school child and the cost of educating the primary school child. In this Report we get a figure of over 22s. a week as the cost of educating the average school child in Scotland. Why can we not, for the sake of 2s. or 3s. a week more, deal with the case of the 6 per cent. of hungry, insufficiently nourished children in order to see that the 22s. is wisely spent? No teacher can teach under-nourished children. No teacher can get results from such children and it seems painfully obvious to me that if we do not spend our money to see that the child gets a decent start in life physically, we shall have to pay for it later on in the upkeep of sanatoria hospitals and other remedial institutions. I would ask the Under-Secretary if he cannot give us some encouragement and some hope that this 6 per cent. of undernourished children shall immediately be looked after by the appropriate authority. In this Report of 60 pages only six miserable lines are given to the whole question of medical inspection and treatment and even then, we are referred to the Tenth Annual Report of the Scottish Board of Health. When we go to that Report we get figures showing that 73 per cent. of the children attending our schools—three but of four—suffer from
defective teeth. Our dental services are inadequate. Examinations take place but weeks and sometimes months elapse before the dentist can deal with the cases, and there are two whole counties in Scotland in which, after all these years, there is no provision for a dental service. Then we have the cases of rickets—a poverty disease—and the cases of defective eyesight—over 5 per cent. and increasing. All the time, the feeding of the necessitous children is dependent on charity. These facts do not seem to warrant any enconiums from this side on the work of the Education Department in regard to the health of the school child. Sir George Newman in one of the most remarkable Government publications I ever read—a little book published by the Health Department which hon. Members can get for sixpence and which is, I think, entitled, "The Science of the Prevention of Disease"—shows clearly how, for an almost infinitesimal amount of public expenditure, and by taking the right kind of diseases first, we could wipe out great blocks of pain and disease. I am sure every party in this House is prepared to go further in this matter than we have hitherto gone and yet the Education Department not merely "stands pat" but goes backwards in regard to the feeding of school children and hands us out a Report which is without any encouragement for further development and which leaves us, indeed, worse than we were before. Many of our schools were designed and built many years ago and it is my considered opinion that a large amount of children's troubles arise directly from bad heating arrangements and bad ventilation. The ventilation most frequently has to come from the window-tops and when a crowded school becomes overheated, particularly in winter time, the teacher is compelled to let down the window, and the children catch colds from the draught. Not until our heating and ventilation arrangements are changed are we likely to wipe out any considerable proportion of the ailments which unfortunately seem to afflict so many children.
I have a case here which I almost hesitate to raise so extraordinary does it seem. It is the case of a child who was to receive an orphan's pension, as long as it was maintained at school, until the age of 16. This child, according to the testimony
of the chairman of the school management committee, and the indirect testimony at any rate of the clerk of the education authority, has been absent from school because of illness and lack of sufficient clothing to enable it to attend school on very cold days. Although certificates of the ill-health and poverty of the child, and of the lack of clothing, were supplied to the Department, it would appear that the orphan's pension has been cut off by the Department, despite the protests of the school management committee and the education authority. There may be some explanation of which I am unaware, but I hope that this is not a common practice. It is the only case I know of, and I am sure if it is a unique case, the Under-Secretary will look into it. I will send him the papers relating to it, and I hope he will take steps to see that the pension is restored. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that a Government Department should insist, despite protest from the local education authority, who know the facts, on taking away the full child's pension because it was unable to attend school through illness and lack of clothing due to poverty. I trust that this is not common, and that if a new practice is going to be initiated, the Under-Secretary will take immediate steps to put an end to it.

Mr. MAXTON: I do not know how long the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be in his reply to the various questions that have been raised. I do not want to take up time which I am sure he could use more effectively than I could, though I have seen Ministers on previous occasions who were quite glad to have a very small time left to them to reply to criticisms. I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree with me that the criticism to-day has been of a kindly and helpful kind to which he will be only too delighted to reply at considerable length. I want merely to reinforce one or two points which have been made by my hon. Friends, in particular that one which has been urged by my three hon. Friends who have spoken, about taking some steps to make it possible for working-class parents to maintain their children through the years of a secondary education and through university, technical, college and other central institutional training. It is a very pathetic thing to think that we have 31,000 children entering our
secondary schools in 1928 and, at the end, only some 2,818 complete the full secondary course. All these 31,000 children have been certified by their teachers, the headmasters of the schools and the visiting Government Inspector as being capable of taking full advantage of the secondary education so far as their mental attainments are concerned, and yet only about 3,000 of them, or 10 per cent., have the opportunity of completing the course. I am certain from what experience I have had as a member of the education authority and a teacher, that in a very large proportion of these cases it is the economic factor pure and simple that decides whether a secondary training is going to be completed or interrupted by the necessity of the child having to go out and become a wage-earner to help to increase the family income.
I also add my word to the plea of my hon. Friends who have urged a greater reduction in the size of classes. I note that again statistics show that the birth-rate is still declining. The figures are only given for the half-year of 1928. I assume that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will have the completed figures in his Department. If the second half-year corresponds with the first half-year, the total birth-rate will be something like 93,000, which is a drop of 3,000 on the previous year, which in turn was a drop of 3,000 on the previous year. Every year since 1924 the birth-rate has been steadily declining, which seems to me to leave school accommodation and teaching power available for further reduction in the size of classes.
I want to associate myself with the protest of my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) in the very meagre reference that is made to the medical and health side of education. To have a mere half-a-dozen lines in the educational report seems to me to be putting the subject in a wrong perspective. I remember very well a very fine speech made by the Under-Secretary on the Second Reading of the De-rating Bill when he used, as one of the strong arguments for it, the possibility of great developments in taking care of the health of the children. I hope when the Department are co-ordinated in this matter very much greater attention will be given to the health side—not merely to the
medical inspection side but to the work of actually building up the children. I know how very much interested the hon. and gallant Gentleman is in the question of child nutrition; I should have hoped that in the Educational Report there would have been some very definite reference to the progress that had been made with this experiment. After all, I am fairly well satisfied that the mothers know very well how to feed their children in a wholesome and intelligent way.
It is interesting to know that the school attendance for nearly a dozen years has averaged just under 90 per cent. When one considers that in that percentages are tiny tots of four years of age, who have to be turned out in all sorts of weather, sometimes to travel long distances to school, and when one knows of all the various ailments which afflict children, when one knows of the raging epidemics of influenza which have struck a large proportion of the adults and child population, to maintain a steady regular percentage of attendance of 90 in the elementary schools shows that the mothers have a genuine, deep-seated anxiety for the welfare of their children, which is manifested in the care and attention that turns those youngsters out to school regularly every day. The problem is not one of getting better mothers, nor is it one of getting better teachers. It is a problem of putting at the disposal of parents the finance that will enable them to provide for the children the things that the mothers know they need and want to give them. Guidance as to the nutritive value of various foodstuffs would certainly be welcomed and made use of by the intelligent parents of Scotland.
I was very interested to read in the Board of Health Report about a statement made by the supervisor of domestic economy in West Lothian, who has supplied some interesting details as to midday meals, and she states that a feeding scheme was operated in nine centres and that excellent soup was provided, the cost of the meal being Id. That is useful and valuable information. I am quite sure the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Shinwell), who has a fairly large team to look after at home, would be very glad to know how it is done,
and I also, although not blessed to the same extent, would be glad to know how an excellent meal is provided for 1d. But I do wish that in all these Reports a little less stress were put on how cheaply it can be done and a little more stress on how well it can be done.
There is a paragraph in the Report dealing with playing fields. The Report makes reference to the inquiries that the Board of Education have made about playing fields, and they make reference to the work of the Playing Fields Association in this connection, but they do not make any reference to any one playing field that has been provided anywhere in Scotland for the youngsters. I am glad to pay tribute to the work of the Playing Fields Association. I think that these posters they have put on the walls are wonderful bits of work. There is a poster that I have seen showing a youngster standing at a wicket, and underneath it says "It is not cricket," the youngster showing evidences of malnutrition and being poorly dressed; and the Playing Fields Association regard it as not being cricket that he cannot get a field to play in. I agree with them, and I am glad of the propaganda they are doing in this direction, although I also think it is not cricket that the youngster has not got a physique to play with, but I hope the education authorities of Scotland, or the local government body that is responsible for the administration of education in the future will not wait until the purse-strings of private charity are loosened to the extent of making playing fields available, and that, having the power and the resources of the nation at their back, they will recognise that an adequate field for the youngsters to play in ought to be a first charge on the public purse. I hope that, when the next Report comes to be presented to this Committee, it will give not merely a record of inquiries that are being made about playing fields, but a list of playing fields that have been actually acquired for the use of the youngsters of Scotland.
One other thing. I notice that the reformatory and industrial schools of Scotland are still having a large, although, I admit, decreasing, number of boys and girls committed to them. One does not follow all the cases that come before the Courts of boys remitted by associations
and others to reformatories, but some cases have come to my knowledge. I have just been approaching the Secretary of State for Scotland about two lads in Kilmarnock who have been sentenced to five years in a reformatory school for a very trivial first offence. To send boys—

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Captain Bourne): I think that the hon. Member is now trespassing on another Vote. I am a little hesitant, but I am under the impression that this comes under the Vote for the Secretary of State for Scotland and not under the Vote for Scottish Education. Perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong.

Mr. JOHNSTON: It comes under the heading of defective school children.

Major ELLIOT: As far as the hon. Member was going, I think that it is covered in the General Health Report.

Mr. MAXTON: It would probably be wrong for me to criticise the Judges who committed the boys to the reformatory, but I think that it is within my power to suggest under this Vote that the education authorities should pay special attention to the young delinquents who are brought before the courts, and to use all their influence to prevent the pupils for whose education they are responsible from being convicted and branded as criminals at the age of 11, 12 or 13. When a school-master or a master in a school is prepared to go into court and pay testimony to a boy's character and capacity, it is particularly a shocking thing that any sheriff should be allowed to send that boy for five years to a reformatory. Therefore, I ask those responsible for the administration of education in Scotland to try and rouse the interest of the authorities in the question of juvenile offenders, so that at the very earliest, when he is tending to go along wrong tracks, influence may be applied to keep him along sound lines educationally. I do not think that any of my remarks have been unfriendly. The general tenor of my criticism is to the effect that, if Scottish education has decent sums of money placed at its disposal to stimulate and develop it, the possibilities of getting speedy results from that expenditure are practically unlimited.

Major ELLIOT: I am sure that all on this side of the Committee, and particularly the Minister, could do nothing but express gratitude for the helpful and constructive way in which the Committee has dealt with the Vote now under consideration. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) tended perhaps to become a little too constructive at the end of his speech, on lines that it would be beyond the limits of order to reply to, he would be the last to admit that the amount is adequate for the education system in Scotland—and, with his well-known Parliamentary skill, it was not until he was approaching the conclusion of his remarks that he embarked on a course which might have led to their termination by the Ruling of the Chair if he had done so earlier in his speech. The desirability of developing the education system of Scotland is common ground on all sides of the Committee; this extension is not the prerogative or the promise of any one party. Most valuable reforms have been initiated under the regime of all parties in the House, and I pay my tribute to the party opposite for the steps which they took in a reduction of the size of the classes. That advances have been made by all parties is common ground. In addition to reviewing the points which were made by hon. Members opposite, it is desirable to consider the broad general line which has arisen from the discussion this evening of our Scottish education system. The hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Cowan), to whose party we are indebted for raising the Vote, and other Members spoke of the desirability of giving more attention in the future than we have given in the past to the health and the physical fitness of school children. We must make sure that the constitution of the child is sound, that the eyes with which it sees and the ears with which it hears are keen and receptive, so that it may take in the instruction provided, and also that the child may benefit by the outside life when it leaves school, both during the school years and when the school years are finished. That is a note in Scottish education which we have not struck so vigorously in the past as it has been struck to-night. I think the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities was right when he said we had tended to neglect the physical side of education, and that
it might be necessary to give it more than its fair share of attention for some years to come, because the leeway to be made up is so much greater than on the mental side of education.
I shall return to this subject later. The hon. Member for Bridgeton urged me to speak at great length upon the subject of education, though he ought to know better than to tempt fallible mortals such as myself to dilate upon a subject so congenial to the heart of a Scottish Member. Certain definite questions were raised by hon. Members in various parts of the House, and I would like to deal with them before returning, if time permits, to the more general questions concerning education which the Debate has raised this evening. The question of raising the school age was brought up by the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities and by several other speakers, and it was also referred to in the Debate on Education in England, a Debate to which our colleague from Scotland, the Noble Lady the Member for Perthshire (Duchess of Atholl) replied. It was a singularly happy thing to have the Scottish and the English Education Estimates in one day, so that we could review the subject as a whole, and it was a testimony to our Scottish system of education that the winding up of the Debate on education in England should be undertaken by a Member for a Scottish constituency and one who received all her training in connection with educational matters in Scotland.
In connection with the raising of the school age, surely we must see that adequate opportunities are provided for all who desire to attend school before we apply compulsion to those who, by hypothesis, do not desire to attend school. The response to the greater facilities which have been provided has been an encouraging one. In the year 1913–14 39,000 children stayed on after the age of 14; in the year 1927–28 that number had risen to 70,000. This was accomplished without any compulsion whatever; it shows the advantage which has been taken of the facilities already provided. The hon. Member for the Scottish Universities asked whether I could give him a pledge to fix the day, or else demand from the local authorities that they should make a survey of all the steps necessary
to enable the date to be fixed. I am afraid that I am unable to give a pledge on either of those points. I noticed that the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities referred to circumstances under which a Government chosen from his own party might bring the suggestion he had made into operation. However that may be, I am sure we all welcome his cheery contributions to the Debate. It is neither possible for me to give a pledge that all the steps should be taken now, or to give a pledge that the date will be fixed. Obviously, that is something which will be one of the earliest tasks of the new Government. I am certain that the educational record of the Government now approaching the end of its full term is not such as to make us believe that, if the present Government are again returned to power, they will be at all backward in carrying out the surveys, and making further progress in educational matters in Scotland.
The hon. Member for Midlothian and Peebles (Mr. Westwood) claimed that the credit for raising the school age was due to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Fife (Mr. W. Adamson), because he had initiated a policy which other Governments had carried on. I trust the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Fife will bring to the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer this striking example of continuity of policy in our legislation, and let him know that there are at any rate some cases in our domestic legislation where continuity of policy is highly desirable. It is clear that the present Government have carried on a policy which was initiated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Fife, and this shows that these great steps are not subject to reversal by a change of Government. It is of the greatest importance that steps of that kind should not be taken until they have received the assent of all parties in the House.
The hon. Member for Midlothian and Peebles made some criticisms regarding the system of examinations in Scotland. I am sure the hon. Member will be inclined to agree with me when I say that this question of the responsibility thrown on the teacher can be very greatly overdone, and it is necessary to have some system of examinations to assist the teacher in arriving at a proper conclusion
as to the ability of the children. The fear of examinations and the increased stress and strain which they leave upon us in our early days are things to which we have to look forward in our future life as well as merely answering a few questions which are humanely put under very familiar and easy conditions. The hon. Member for Midlothian and Peebles is in favour of a soft examination, but in my opinion the fear which has been expressed in regard to examinations is something which can be easily overdone. Such examinations are occasionally necessary not only for the sake of the child but for the sake of the teachers as well. The system of examinations, even if it does occasionally cause a nervous shock to those about to be examined, cannot be entirely done away with.
The hon. Member spoke more particularly of agricultural education, and on that subject I should like to say that, again, in the course of this Debate, we have had evidence of the advantages which hon. Members themselves feel will arise from the unification of authorities as set out in the Local Government Bill which recently passed through all its stages in this House. The hon. Member said that his authority had been discouraged by the Secretary of State from spending money independently, but he did not suggest that he would have been willing to carry out in that regard the same principle of centralisation to which he gave such high praise in connection with other educational matters, and to subscribe this sum of £5,000 a year to the Agricultural College of the region, which is in fact at present the organisation entrusted with the duty of carrying out the agricultural education of the community. The hon. Member desired to set up a decentralised, independent institution, but I should have thought he would have been the last to complain if the same principle of centralisation which he praised in other spheres were applied in this sphere also, and if it were realised that you cannot have independent agricultural education carried out by a great number of small, overlapping, contending institutions throughout the country, but that the subject is eminently one which must be considered in connection with the broad region which the three Agricultural Colleges of
Scotland have already mapped out for themselves.
The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) came down to the more immediate point of the school accommodation in Scotland, and in Glasgow in particular. I received his letter, and we are much indebted to him for his courtesy in giving us notice of the point that he desired to raise. The case which he more particularly raised was that of the Greenside Street school. In the first place, I should say that, as the hon. Member knows, the school accommodation in Scotland has been considerably enlarged in the past few years, and the Glasgow education authority has had the heavy task of bringing up to date and modernising a great number of Roman Catholic schools. It is quite true that the school buildings to which the hon. Member referred are unsatisfactory, but that is not a question of Roman Catholics or Protestants, but a question of one crowded school. It was necessary to bring down the overcrowding in the adjacent school, and for that purpose, in spite of the unsatisfactory nature of the premises as a whole, six classes were eventually placed in that building. It is not desirable that they should remain there permanently, even though they are not on the noisy side of the building, where, there is the railway traffic of which the hon. Member complained; but the only way of dealing with that situation is to build a new school. The building of a new school has not yet been determined upon by the authority. I agree, as the hon. Member would agree, that the building of a new school will have to be undertaken, but we must allow the local authority a certain amount of time to modernise and deal with the schools in its area.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Ten years is a long time.

Major ELLIOT: It is only last year that the purchase of the Roman Catholic school properties has been carried through in Glasgow, and it was really only after that had been carried through that the local authority was able to deal with this problem in its proper perspective. The local authority is now the owner of the school premises throughout. It has not been the owner of them for 10
years, but, in the case of much of this unsatisfactory school property, it has only been the owner since last year. Our inspectors, although this is primarily a matter for the local authority itself, have paid a great deal of attention to the situation in Glasgow. It was one of the things on which Sir George Macdonald himself spent a great deal of personal time and trouble, and last year, I think for the first time, we had a paragraph of warm appreciation by our inspectors of the work which has been done in Glasgow in attacking the defective school accommodation and bringing it up to date. The Central Committee does realise that Glasgow has had a heavy responsibility laid upon it, and this year for the first time the inspectors have complimented the local authority on the progress which has been made. It is quite true that there is defective school accommodation in Glasgow, but the local authority is showing determination in this matter, and we must allow it time to develop its full programme, seeing the difficulty which this big task has admittedly laid upon it. I cannot expect the hon. Member to be altogether satisfied with that policy.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman can readily understand the position when the Secretary of State for Scotland, who had condemned the building as being of no use as a school, less than a year afterwards says that the school is fit for Catholics. He can realise how offensive it is when a school has been condemned for use by one group that it should then be allowed to be used by another group. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot make proper provision, he should take steps, in conjunction with the education authority, to get a school provided temporarily. I do not see why, if there is a push made in his Department, a temporary school cannot be erected.

Major ELLIOT: The hon. Gentleman will agree that, if it is a question of providing temporary premises, or new premises of a permanent type, or to use again not the whole but a portion of the building previously in use as a school building, one might easily say that those who are likely to take offence can take
offence at the provision of that accommodation just as they can at the provision of a school in the old building. They might say, "Here is a community, Protestant, or Jewish, or Christian Science, which has had a glorious new school built for it, whereas our community is only fit for a few ramshackle shanties with open boarding and corrugated iron roofs." I am sure that the Roman Catholic community will be the first to recognise the great efforts in the modernising of the school accommodation in Glasgow. I readily give this assurance to my hon. Friend, that we are keeping the situation under close review, and we have every hope that a new school will be built which will provide permanent accommodation for these schools of a class not inferior to the class provided for the other schools in Glasgow. The hon. Member went further and stated that in regard to new schools, which were so much superior to old schools, it would be a further class distinction between those who had moved to new housing schemes and those still in the centre of the city. Again, we must realise that the new schools are bound to go where the new houses are provided.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Why cannot they travel from the well-to-do areas?

Major ELLIOT: Obviously, if they could travel either from the centre to the suburbs or from the suburbs to the centre, the hon. Member will agree that it is much preferable that the schools should be in the suburbs and the children go out to them rather than that we should build new schools in the overcrowded, smoke-blackened centre of the city and bring in children from the suburban areas. [Interruption.] That the whole of the school buildings to meet the developments of the next 50 years should be in the centre of the city because of the difficulty of travel would be, indeed, a gross reversal of policy. We must take the schools out to the healthier areas; it is an urgent necessity. The schools will naturally fall to be built more in the outer ring of the city than in the central ring, not merely because that is the best place for the schools to be, but in pursuit of the policy for clearing out the crowded centre of the city to the outskirts where the slum population will
eventually find itself moved, let us hope, and where school accommodation will be already provided for them. The school accommodation must necessarily be provided in the outskirts rather than in the centre, and the hon. Member for Gorbals would be the first to admit that, if he were given Glasgow as a clean sheet and asked to work out a plan of school accommodation.

Mr. MAXTON: Why not bring the healthier areas into the centre?

Major ELLIOT: The only way to bring the healthier areas into the centres is to decant at least 50 per cent. of the population from the centre into the suburbs. It would be silly to build schools for 100 per cent. of the population in the centre and then to carry out 50 per cent. to the new areas, where there will be no school accommodation, and leave the population which you have just succeeded in bringing away from the crowded centres without the necessary school accommodation. The hon. Member for Gorbals raised the question of school clinics. There, again, we are entitled to state that his silence during the passage of the Local Government Bill we did not misinterpret.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I was not silent; I delivered some long speeches.

Major ELLIOT: They were not what we were accustomed to expect from the hon. Member when he is really roused to indignation by the proposals of the Government. In regard to clinics, obviously, it is a mistake to mix up sound children with sick children, defective children with normal children. It is a mistake to crowd an educational institution with clinical facilities of one kind and another. There is every reason to believe that with the unification of the activities of the local authority, it will not be necessary to overcrowd the educational institution with the school clinic while a street or two away, it may be only across the street, there are facilities for carrying out the examination of the children in buildings designed for the purpose, where it can be done without trenching upon the all too inadequate facilities which are available for the teachers for carrying out the main purpose of the school. Everybody agreed that it was a desirable thing to unify and amalgamate the health services. The
break between the school health services and the local authority health services is undoubtedly one of the blots in our education system which the Local Government Bill will remedy, and I am sure that we shall have a very great improvement in this particular defect, of which the hon. Member complained, when the Local Government Bill comes into operation.
The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) asked for greater flexibility to be allowed in our Scottish education system. He certainly raised a point which is very near to my own heart. I have seen this rigidity, this being tied to a system not merely dominating the schools but it has spread its evil effects within the universities. I was horrified to see in the curriculum of medical students a time-table which reminds one of the time-tables from which we used to suffer at school: those little books with which we were familiar, in which we had to tick off one class after another in case, owing to the complexity of the system, we might get lost and miss some class or another. When I find that similar time-tables are being issued to medical undergraduates I feel that it is time that our educational reformers should protest not merely against the present spread of the time-table in schools but its extension into other education institutions. That is a matter of public opinion. I have many friends among the teachers, and I know one teacher who got permission from the education authority to try for two or three days the experiment of allowing, the children to learn what they wished to know. They did some very interesting things. One child spent the time kicking a ball against the wall of the school. I was told that the real reason why the experiment had to be stopped was not because of public opinion or any injury to the children, but because of the terrible strain on the teacher if you got away from the timetables. The strain of two or three days of teaching children by allowing them to learn what they really wanted to learn was so devastating and exhausting that one week of this meant laying up for the rest of the month to recover from it. It seems therefore that a good deal of the education system is not for the compulsion of the child but for the protection of the teacher!
The hon. Member for Camlachie dealt with the bursary system and said that the grants were not enough and that more money should be given. Very considerable amounts have been given. In the year 1922–23 a sum of £220,000 was given; in 1923–24 it was £224,000; in 1924–25 it was £237,000, and in 1925–26 it was £261,000. In fact, there has been on the average nearly a quarter of a million pounds a year given for the past four or five years. At any rate, very considerable provision has been made. It may be that the grants are not enough, but we have to consider the expansion of the education system, not in one direction but in all directions. It is necessary to draw up some sort of priority and to decide where the money is to go, first—whether to the raising of the school age, the improvement of school buildings, increased grants for bursaries, or increased nutrition for all the school population. It is not possible simply to agree on what things are desirable, but you have to work out some sort of table of priority as to which increases are to take place. Obviously, that would be one of the tasks of the new Government when laying down the new policy to be carried on during, I trust, another four or five years of sound Conservative Government such as we have had in the past.
Then the hon. Member asked a question, which I regret I have not been able to answer, in which he drew a comparison between the advanced and secondary courses. We have done our best to allow no question of finance to come in. The buildings for the advanced courses are as good as for the secondary courses, and many of the advanced classes are held in the secondary buildings. As far as we can manage, the new schools for advanced education are fully as well equipped as those for secondary education and more numerous.
The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) spoke also on the question of adequate maintenance grants to deal with the health of the child. He spoke with some acerbity of the fact that only six lines were devoted to this matter in the educational report, but I would remind him that some 20 or 30 pages are devoted to this subject in the Report of the Board of Health, and it would be
overlapping and a waste of expenditure to reprint these pages again in the Report of the Board of Education.

Mr. MAXTON: Other people are interested in education in Scotland besides those who sit in this House.

Major ELLIOT: Those in Scotland who are interested in education will do their utmost either to borrow or purchase the admirable Report of the Scottish Board of Health, which only costs 6s., and I am sure it will be found on the shelves of every progressive education authority, and they will find many more interesting subjects discussed in that Report besides the question of education.

Mr. MAXTON: The Report of the Board of Education costs only 1s.

Major ELLIOT: That is only because we are able to refer inquirers to other Reports. If we included all the other Reports it would cost 10s. or 15s. The question of the education and the health of school children is not a matter simply for the Report of the Education Department. It is a matter for the Board of Health as well, and these two Reports should not be read separately. They must be read together. The lesson of to-night's Debate is that the smaller Report of the Board of Education cannot be considered apart from the larger Report of the Scottish Board of Health. The health of the body cannot be considered apart from the education of the mind; the education of the mind is conditioned by the health of the body. I am not so deeply concerned with the percentage of persons turned out of our educational system not having received the full educational advantage of the 10 years of life which we take from the child during which he is under the educational machine; I am not concerned as to whether the child comes out knowing the four French nasals and the great distinction between them. If the child comes out with two eyes and two ears, a nose through which it can breathe, with 32 teeth, good lungs and four sound limbs; if we can ensure that every child will have this equipment, we are doing more for the people of Scotland than if they come out able to distinguish in their sleep the four French nasals.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Does not the Under-Secretary agree that if 6 per cent. of
the children examined are found to be under-nourished that that fact should at least be mentioned in the Report of the Committee of the Council for Education in Scotland?

Major ELLIOT: The question there was not under-nourishment, but malnutrition, which may not be due to a shortage of food, and the hon. Member will see that this question is dealt with at far greater length in the Report of the Board of Health. I shall report with great interest to the Secretary of State for Scotland the fact that the Committee in its discussion to-night stressed particularly and emphatically the desirability of greater attention being given to the physical condition of the children. I shall report to him the desire of the Committee that special attention should be drawn to that—

It being Eleven of the Clock, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL (WINCHESTER) AND OTHER CHARITIES BILL.

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Thursday next.—[Lieut.-Colonel Spender-Clay.]

Orders of the Day — CLEAN POLITICS BILL.

Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — RATING AND VALUATION (HULL).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Sir G. Hennessy.]

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I wish to raise a point of some constitutional importance affecting the Ministry of Health. I am sorry the Minister of Health is not here, but I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is fulfilling a long-standing engagement in the
country. The point I wish to raise is the refusal by a Minister of the Crown to receive a deputation on a subject of great importance, from the corporation of a city, which deputation was to have been accompanied by the four Members representing that city in the House. The subject matter of the deputation affects 42,000 of the poorest householders in Hull who have had an increased burden of £52,000 placed upon them as the result of a series of Measures passed by this House between 1925 and 1928 dealing with rating and valuation. This has arisen largely owing to bad drafting, a combination of circumstances peculiar to Hull and an unexpected legal decision in the case of Nicholson v. Jackson. The deputation, proposed to seek advice on what was admittedly a complicated matter and to put before the Minister certain constructive suggestions, which I understand would not have cost the Treasury a penny piece. The Minister is usually very courteous and to the surprise of everyone who knew the facts, he declined to receive the deputation.
The deputation was to have consisted of the Lord Mayor, the chairman and and vice-chairman of the Finance Committee, the chairman of the Assessment Committee and two other councillors. There is a majority of Conservatives on the council and of the four Members of Parliament who were to have accompanied the deputation, three are supporters of the right hon. Gentleman's party and I am the fourth. Would Birmingham or even Woolwich have been treated in this way? The Minister of Health is not a dictator; he is not a Mussolini. He is a public servant paid by the whole body of taxpayers, with certain duties to perform, and, if the council of the corporation of a city of 300,000 inhabitants wish to discuss a matter of this importance with him, it is an affront to the whole country to say that they cannot be received. I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary of what happened when the Postmaster-General refused to receive a deputation from the newspapers. Of course, in that case the Press was concerned, and the Prime Minister soon rapped the Postmaster-General over the knuckles. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give me some explanation and, above all,
to reconsider this decision and to see if we cannot have the benefit of the Ministry's experts in this matter.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): I am glad to have the opportunity of removing any misapprehension which may exist among the citizens of Hull in regard to this matter. The complaint of the hon. and gallant Member, I understand, is solely directed to the fact that my right hon. Friend does not think it desirable or expedient at the present moment to receive the deputation. My right hon. Friend has already given a great deal of time to the situation that has developed in Hull recently. So far from failing in his duty, he has to the best of his ability pointed out to the Hull Corporation exactly what the position is. There has been considerable correspondence between my right hon. Friend and the Corporation. Following that correspondence is a later letter saying they had some further suggestion to make. A very obvious reply to that is that before coming up, at the expense of the ratepayers, they should inform my right hon. Friend what it is. The hon. and gallant Gentleman evidently knows what the suggestion is because he said it would not exist the taxpayers a single penny, a comforting reflection in these days.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: It would mean legislation and it would be out of order to discuss it on the Adjournment.

Sir K. WOOD: If that is the proposal of the Hull Corporation, they had better put it in a communication to my right hon. Friend, for it is a very astonishing situation that the Hull Corporation, alone of all corporations, should come forward with a proposal for legislation in regard to their assessments. It is very largely on account of the fact that the Town Council has thought fit to continue the payment of allowances to owners at the maximum permissible rate long after the conditions which might be held to have justified them when originally fixed, that the ratepayers find themselves in the position they are in to-day. Also the gross assessments and rate compounded houses have been increased by more than 50 per cent.
over their pre-War figures. While I am not in a position to criticise responsible bodies as to the level of assessments, I am certainly aware that many of these cases no doubt create special difficulties, which I am glad to think have been overcome by the great number of corporations up and down the country. My right hon. Friend believes that in the majority of rating areas the gross value of controlled houses has not been increased in the course of general revaluation by more than 40 per cent. above the pre-War level, yet the Town Council of Hull have increased theirs by over 50 per cent. When they are looking around to blame other people for the position in which they find themselves, I think they must direct their attention a little to what has happened in Hull itself by their own action, and which I repeat very much affects the position in which a very large number of these poor people find themselves, I am not at all prepared to assent to the view of the hon. and gallant Member, who has no doubt tried to make the best case he can for the Council to-night, that the difficulty is due to bad drafting, or to the legal position, or any matter of that kind. He has only to look at the position of other authorities and at what has happened in connection with assessments of small houses, and compare it with what has happened in Hull, and I think that there he may find one of the reasons for the position in Hull.
The citizens of Hull ought to know that in 1928 the Government brought in a Measure, which many hon. Members will recall, which had the very object of easing the position of the small tenants, and, so far from ignoring Hull on that occasion, the Town Clerk, who has since, unfortunately, died, and another representative from Hull, were invited to attend a conference and put the difficulties of Hull, in common with other towns and cities, before the Ministry. As a result of that conference, a Bill was introduced into this House which has very largely met the situation at any rate in other great towns and cities.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: It is rather unfair on a man who has died, but it is denied in the City that he did agree. He protested. That is the information given by his colleagues.

Sir K. WOOD: At any rate, the council attended the conference and were fully aware of the reasons actuating the Government in bringing forward their fresh legislation, and as I say in practically every other case no such difficulty has arisen. It seems to me that when Parliament has cast upon the local authorities of the country special duties in connection with this matter, it is difficult for me to say more than I have said, because it would be very unwise, inasmuch as the Hull Council have full authority and responsibility in this matter, if my right hon. Friend had endeavoured, in an improper way, to take away from the council duties and responsibilites which had been given them by this House. But I must say that if I was in the position of an occupier or a tenant of one of these houses, I should not, speaking quite personally, be content to acquiesce in the course which the Hull Council have taken.
I should be very much inclined to adopt the remedies that have been given in the Act of Parliament to people for that particular list to be amended. As the House knows, this can be amended at any time within the next six months, and if any amendment is made in the list, that amendment will go right back to the very beginning of the half-year. If the matter could be put right in that way, nobody could be damnified in that connection. That would be the course that I should be inclined to adopt if I were faced with the action taken by a corporation, which has been taken in this particular case. If there be a large number of people affected in this way, and undoubtedly heavy burdens have been placed on a large number of poor people, I think it is at any rate well worth consideration by those who are interested in their welfare that the action of this corporation might be tested.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: It is the landlords, not the corporation.

Sir K. WOOD: I am referring to the action that the corporation have taken in the whole matter with regard to the assessments which they made. As far as the Ministry is concerned, we have tried to treat the local authorities in the nature of partners; that is the spirit that has actuated the Minister throughout the whole of his administration of the Ministry
of Health, and we should not like to feel that there is any ill-feeling between any corporation and the Ministry. If any responsible officer of the Hull Corporation would like to attend at the Ministry and go into the matter further with our officials on this highly technical matter, I will certainly facilitate a proposal of that kind. If, on the other hand, they have any reasonable proposal to make to my right hon. Friend, the very least that the council could do is to say quite frankly what it is they want. If they have any reasonable proposal to make, they would be best served by not hesitating to make it to my right hon. Friend. I cannot under present circumstances think that any good purpose would be served by us receiving a deputation, but we will receive any communication they may like to make. If an officer likes to come up to the Department and consult with our head official, I will see that he gets every attention and consideration. I cannot go further than that.

Mr. LUMLEY: I cannot agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) that any great constitutional question is involved as far as receiving or not receiving this deputation is concerned. Rather do I think that there is a difference of opinion as to who is actually responsible for the increase in the rates. The situation in Hull at present is that the poorest houses—that is, those up to £10 rateable value, and totalling 42,000 houses—are faced with an increase of 6d. per week in their rates.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Much more in some cases.

Mr. LUMLEY: On an average, I think it is 6d. a week, as far as the £10 rateable value houses are concerned. It is contended by my hon. and gallant Friend and those who support him in Hull that it is the Government who are responsible for this by reason of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, as amended by the Rating and Valuation Act, 1928. They assert that the increase is entirely due to the reduction in the compounding allowances made to landlords. As the House will remember, the maximum allowance to landlords under those Acts is 15 per cent. In Hull, previous to 1928, the allowances to landlords was 35 per
cent. If it were true that the whole of this increase of 6d. a week were due to that reduction in compounding allowances I would agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that the Government were responsible and therefore might be expected to receive a deputation to ascertain what remedial measures could be brought about, but that is not the case. The greater part of this increase of 6d. a week is due not to the reduction in the compounding allowances but to the action of the local authority themselves in their treatment of the gross valuation of those poorer houses.
In the valuation of 1924 the gross value of these houses was fixed at 15 per cent. above the pre-War rates, but in the valuation which has just taken place, the 1928 valuation, their gross value was raised by a jump of 35 per cent. to 50 per cent. above pre-War rates. The average throughout the country, I understand, is only 40 per cent. above pre-War rates, and so the responsibility for this considerable jump in the gross value of these poorer houses, which is reflected in the rates which they have to pay, rests entirely upon the local assessment authority. It is no use, therefore, for anybody to say that this increase of 6d. is due to the reduction of the compounding allowances; on the contrary, it is due
to the method employed by the local assessment committee in Hull in making this big jump in fixing the gross value of these poorer houses.
It must be perfectly obvious to my hon. and gallant Friend that, if that be the case, the Ministry cannot interfere, for one of the great points made when the Rating and Valuation Acts were passing through this House was that the local assessment authorities must remain quite independent and free from any kind of political control or Government interference. Therefore, it is no use asking the Government to receive a deputation. The only thing that the Minister of Health could say to such a deputation would be that it was the corporation, the local assessment authority, which had, in its own discretion, in its own wisdom, largely caused the increase in the rates on the poorer houses; and, if that be all that he would be able to say, and if there is no action which the Government could take, but if the responsibility for this lies on the local assessment authority, I can see no reason why a deputation should be brought up at the expense of the ratepayers of Hull.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.